The Beans:

Aida Battle is the owner of the Finca Mauritania farm in Santa Ana, El Salvador. Over the years, Aida and her farm have become famous in coffee circles. She's really changed the face of the Salvadoran coffee scene, and continues to push the limits of ripe harvesting, exquisite hand preparation, and attention to detail. She works with her pickers, teaching them about quality in every step of the process, and celebrates every accomplishment on the farm as a team. Aida is leading the industry in fair compensation of farm workers, paying her workers over 3 times the legal minimum wate. She has also become active in helping develop leadership roles for women in coffee. In other words, Aida has become a rock star coffee producer.

2009 is the debut of Finca Mauritania as a Certified Organic Coffee. Aida has always been dedicated to organic farming, and it is quite a feat to have successfully negotiated the certification process (which is quite unusual in El Salvador).

The Roaster:

Counter Culture Coffee has spent the last decade working side by side with its partners to source the greatest coffees in the world, directly from the farmers themselves, celebrating the individuals, farms, and cultures behind each harvest. Finca Mauritania is Counter Culture Direct Trade Certified (CCDTC), which means that they are paying the farmers and workers a higher wage than the fair trade wage. The CCDTC minimum price is $1.60/lb for green coffee. The fair trade certified (FTC) price is $1.35/lb.

Counter Culture has also been able to certify many farms that would not normally qualigy for fair trade certification. "FTC applies exclusively to coffee farms organized into co-ops. In our experience, many extraordinary, family owned, well-managed, progressive, independent farms are structurally excluded from the FTC market. CCDTC may apply to any and all of our producer partners" (CounterCultureCoffee.com). This allows smaller, independent farms to have the quality of their work recognized and rewarded.