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Floral, Honeydew, Sugarcane, Clove

Story Behind the Coffee

Hameed Subaih is a 60 year old smallholder coffee farmer based in Bait Alal village, Hayma Kharijiya of the Sana’a governorate. Like most smallholder coffee farmers in Yemen, he also was involved in the rearing of the crop since he was a child. He helped out his father in the field, until he came of age, and was able to manage the farm by himself. He’s since grown to become one of the best farmers in his village. Family and coffee will forever be synonymous to Hameed. He only grows coffee on his farm. With passion, love and utmost care, he looks after 700 trees and is assisted by his family members. During harvest season, everybody comes to the field and picks cherries. This is also why the most difficult moment that Hameed has confronted so far is grappling with the loss of his son, who lost his life in a strife between farmers. His late son had studied at the university level and was helping Hameed on the farm as well. “Coffee growing needs a lot of hard work. The trees demand it from the moment they are planted. They require constant irrigation, soil care, manure and so on. Then, when we would take our dried and milled harvest to local traders, we would get such low prices that they were often a quarter of the cost of production.” His biggest challenge, however, remains the lack of water for irrigation. Like other farmers in the community, Hameed also depends on spring water. Hameed hopes to win the auction and expand his farm to grow more coffee. He closes the conversation with a message for the coffee drinkers enjoying his produce: “We promise to work hard to improve our production and quality so that you can keep enjoying our coffees.”