episode 4

Women's up

Sinopsis

Elizabeth Méndez gets up before dawn in her bamboo house in the Guna region of Panama. Before her children wake up, she is already out in the coffee fields. Her day encapsulates a contradiction that defines millions of women in the global coffee industry: they are the ones who work the hardest, who know the most, and who are paid the least.
The episode uses Elizabeth’s story as a gateway to the industry’s most pressing question: where are the women? The answer is paradoxical: they are everywhere — growing, harvesting, processing, roasting — and yet they are invisible in the value chain, on land titles and at world championships.
Asnakech Thomas, the woman who escaped a forced marriage in Ethiopia at the age of thirteen and became the leader of one of the country’s largest coffee cooperatives, serves as the African mirror image of Elizabeth’s story. Marta Kauffman and Meghan Markle represent the profile of influential women who found a cause in coffee. Isabel Allende closes the episode and the season with a reflection that also serves as a summary: coffee, like literature, is the space where unheard voices finally find a place.

Details

Topics

Women’s Empowerment

Locations

Panamá | USA | Chile

Starring

Elizabeth Méndez (Panama)
Marta Kauffman (USA)
Meghan Markle (USA)
Isabel Allende (Chile)

Long before the sun rises over the towering trees of the Panamanian rainforest, Elizabeth Méndez,
an indigenous Guna woman, wakes to the crowing of her rooster. She lives in a bamboo and thatched hut, nestled in the lush jungle. This is where she and her family have been growing
coffee for generations.
Elizabeth’s busy day begins with the distinctive aroma of freshly brewed coffee, which for her means much more than just a morning start to her day.
Coffee has long been an important source of income for many indigenous peoples in Panama. However, in recent years, these communities have struggled to maintain their traditional production methods.
“I’ve been harvesting coffee since I was a child, but sometimes we didn’t understand what was happening to the plant: sometimes it looked sick, sometimes it didn’t bear much fruit,” says Elizabeth.
“The other big challenge we’ve always faced is where and how to sell the coffee. When we harvest, sometimes we have nowhere to sell it and sometimes we sell it cheaply,” she adds.

Elizabeth Méndez

Renowned producer and co-creator of the series Friends, which transformed the coffee shop “Central Perk” and its giant bowls of coffee into a cultural icon of the 90s.

Marta Kauffman

Duchess of Sussex, wife of Prince Harry of England, and investor in Clevr, a brand of healthy latte coffee, led by women.

Meghan Markle

Isabel Allende

Chilean writer, member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has sold more than 70 million books and translated into 50 languages. A coffee lover, she consumes it preferably while writing.