Carolina Peralta fills the espresso machine with freshly brewed coffee beans, shortly after a noise drowns out the chatter of the guests and the smell of freshly ground coffee fills the room. It doesn't take long for a customer to walk up to the counter and start scanning the card. “Which coffee would you like?” asks Carolina, “Lidia's or Consuelo's?”

Lidia and Consuelo are just two of the dozen women's names that are written in large letters on the coffee bean containers, on the paper wrappers lined up on the shelf behind the counter or on the coffee beans at the “Florencia” cafeteria. and Fortunata”. in the Peruvian city of Cusco Cards lying on the counter.

“Our mission is to make women coffee producers in Peru more visible,” says Carolina, 27, who founded the café in 2021.

“Where are the women in the coffee industry?”

After studying accounting at a business university in Lima, the young Peruvian worked for a large pharmaceutical company. The job required him to travel a lot around Peru. “I have always been passionate about coffee shops and I took advantage of my trips to drink coffee in different places,” says Carolina.

She noted that coffee culture in Peru is heavily dominated by men. In cafes, they talked almost exclusively about the coffee producer, the roaster and the barista. “I asked myself: Where are the women in this industry?”

And so Carolina began traveling alone to various coffee plantations in Peru, especially in her native region of Cusco and Cajamarca.

“There I saw patterns that were repeated,” he reports. Of course women would work on the plantations. They are even the backbone of production in many family businesses because, in addition to work, they also take care of the organization, children and animals. “Women make everything work,” says Carolina.

Women in coffee plantations: a lot of work, little visibility

But in the end, the coffee that women work hard for is sold under men's names. Carolina reports on women, including Blanca Quispe (photo), who manage her business but initially chose the name of her father or husband for her coffee. This means there is more recognition and sales figures are better.

To change that, Carolina made a plan: open a coffee shop that sells coffee made by women to promote equality in the coffee industry. To do this, she left her job and returned to her hometown, Cusco.

The coffee didn't start well at first.

He opened his café in his Magisterio neighborhood with the name “Florencia and Fortunata”, names of his two grandmothers.

But the beginning was bumpy. On the one hand, Cusco residents are used to drinking strong, distilled coffee. They didn't like cappuccino or flat white. “On the other hand, in my neighborhood there was little understanding of the concept of coffee,” says Carolina. Customers stayed away.

New beginnings in the center of Cusco

So the entrepreneur moved her cafe to the city center, just a few meters from Plaza Mayor, the main square. “Here we find more curiosity and openness,” reports Carolina. Successfully. More and more customers came to try Consuelo, Lidia, Sonia or Blanca's coffee.

Cusco is a city that attracts many tourists, among other things, because of its proximity to the world wonder Machu Picchu. Travelers from all over the world also visit Carolina's Café. Peruvian coffee is particularly popular in Western countries. But very few people know about structural problems such as discrimination against women.

But there are also many people who come from Peru, even a little more men than women, says Carolina. “I think it's great how coffee supports women,” says Rosalina Susano, a 40-year-old customer, between sips of her iced coffee. “Plus, the coffee is great and I felt directly connected to the whole atmosphere, music and people.”

More female baristas in Peru cafes

Rosalina's coffee was prepared by Rosana Mantilla. The 29-year-old comes from Venezuela and is a barista and head of service at the cafeteria. “In Latin America there are very few baristas behind the counters,” he says. Women mainly work in the service sector, while men work on espresso machines. “But in Peru there are little by little more female baristas.” At least that is her impression, since there are no official statistics on the matter.

Rosana effortlessly creates a fine pattern in the milk foam of a cappuccino. “I believe that whether we are women or men, we can do the same job equally well,” she says. This applies to both working as a barista and producing coffee.

A package of coffee with your own name on it is like a trophy

Carolina recently opened a second branch, also in her home district of Magisterio, where things were not going well at first. People here are now more open and visit the cafe. Carolina also uses the second cafeteria as a roasting laboratory to experiment with different types of coffee.

Carolina would like to soon open another branch in the new Cusco airport, currently under construction. “I think airports are a great showcase,” says Carolina. “In this way we could make our producers' coffee known to people from all over the world.”

Carolina's commitment also runs among the producers. “At first we traveled to the different coffee plantations and asked the women if they wanted to sell their coffee directly to us,” says Carolina. The producers now come to the cafe alone and bring samples.

“When women hold their first package with their name on it, it's like a trophy for them,” reports Carolina. “They are proud to be able to sell their coffee under their name, without insecurities or discrimination.”

Author: Katrin Ewert