SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hi, hello and howdy, and welcome back to Tiny Scicar. I'm Kate, your host and Sidecar Psychick. And today we are getting into a few interviews from the Women Powered Coffee Summit, but also some New Year's goals. It's gonna be a jam packed with lots of fun and lots of conversation. So why don't you grab your favorite cup of coffee and let's get right into it, shall we? So before we get into it, I do want to say one thing. And I know that a lot of people come to Tony Sidecar to find connection and to have your cup filled and to have a little bit of a lighthearted moment. And I want that to be what this episode is too. But I also want to express the immense need that I feel to completely tell you that I know that times in the world right now are incredibly difficult and incredibly hard and honestly pretty terrifying. Um if you're stateside, I feel it, I'm with you, I hear you. I absolutely do not stand for 99.999% of what this administration is doing, and I'm horrified by ICE, I'm horrified by the actions, um, but I also want to be able to be a place of joy and happiness for you because I think there's been a lot of really scary stuff going on both stateside and around the world, and I don't want this episode to feel like I didn't speak on that because I feel like it's one of the reasons why I'm having a really hard time engaging with the social side of life. It just is like everything feels so daunting and scary and a little bit helpless. But I also will say that I feel like I'm incredibly impressed by the society that we are in the sense of like the protests that are happening and neighbors standing for neighbors and people connecting with each other and finding support. Like it's a very horrific time in our history, but at the same time, I'm so proud of the people that are on the right side of history and doing the right thing, and I find incredible hope in that when a lot of other things just feel so disgusting and hopeless. So know that I hate ice, know that I hate what's happening in the world, and I hope that you're taking care of yourself. I am trying the best I can to keep a head on my shoulders, even though my heart is broken. So I think that's all that I want to say about that for right now. But I do want to bring a little bit of joy into your day. So let's talk about some very lighthearted, very different conversation points of goals for 2026. I can't believe that January is completely overdone, fried, gone. I guess I can. I feel like time's been going by really fast, but um January is just a beautiful time of year in a lot of ways for me personally. I love to set New Year's resolutions kind of. I resolutions is a hard word, I think, but I love just a fresh start, a clean slate. I really like looking at the year and thinking about it as this grand task in front of me and how I want to fill it and what I really want to make each year to be. And it's funny because at the end of 2025, I'm like, I'm ready for this to be done, I'm ready for this book to close. And in a lot of ways, it's just another day on the calendar, right? January 1st, another day on the calendar. But there is something that triggers me in my brain that I'm like, cool, let's start it all over again. And that's exactly what I did this year. So the main area that I'll talk to you about is Tani Sidecar specific and women in coffee specific. So one of the things that I really want to focus on is I want to put at least 26 female voices on the podcast this year. I think it's a realistic goal, especially because I have a lot of content from the Women Powered Coffee Summit still. But I I want to hit that goal and hopefully surpass it. I really want to continue to focus on bringing more female voices and interviews and resources onto this network and community that we're building. And the other major goal that I have, and I'm still kind of working on the details of this, but is creating some sort of tiny sidecar platform that we can share resources with, have coffee swaps, have coffee dates, whether they're virtual or in person, um, maybe do a book club, things like that. Just things that might uh help us feel more connected, especially in times when it's really hard to feel connected. And um I don't know, I just wanna I wanna broaden what this is. I I say it a million times in every single podcast, but the women that I've met through Tiny Sidecar have reshaped the way I think about coffee and how I drink coffee and the love that I have for coffee just runs so deep because of these connections. And if there was a way to continue to stoke them when we're not at summits or at World of Coffee or Coffee Fest or whatever it might be, um that's something that I want to try to figure out. And I have a couple of ideas in the books, nothing super official, but on the Tiny Sidecar Instagram, I'm gonna be posting books that I'm reading. If you want to read along with me, you absolutely can. I actually posted today uh two book options for February, March, probably, probably like a two-month period for each book. But open to suggestions, open to things that you're wanting to see or wanting to hear from me, obviously it's one big family. So really excited to expand that. And I guess what really got me going is um I was thinking about how sometimes it's hard for me to go do something if I don't have my person with me, right? Like if I'm gonna go to trivia night, for instance, and I don't think I have enough people with me that make me feel confident to go to trivia night. This might be a bad example, I'm not sure, but in my head it works because trivia night for some reason feels scary to me. But if I had my girl with me, then I could go and I could have fun and I could chill. And really that's what tiny sidecar is. It's just having someone next to you to do the hard thing, right? And whether it's a tiny little helper or maybe it's a big help, I'm not sure. But the more that we could support each other in doing those tasks together, I think we're just gonna continue to grow as a community and as women doing this amazing work that we do. So, how can we create other little tiny sidecar moments to like maybe go to that expo or maybe go to that coffee meetup that you feel intimidated to go to or take that class or whatever it might be? Like, whether it's just hearing someone else say that they've also done it and it's been great, or that they did it and it was scary, but it was worth it, you know. Maybe it's just that little extra nudge, that little tiny support system, and how can we make that happen more frequently for each other so that we continue to grow and reach each other's goals. So we'll see um what all comes of it. But I'm pretty excited about the concept, and so now it's just getting all the details together. But again, if you have ideas or if you're wanting um to build community in a certain way through tiny sidecar, please let me know because I would love to learn from you per usual. Let's see, the other thing that I would say coffee related is I do have some travel coming up this year, and I'm really excited about so much of the travel. But World of Coffee in San Diego is definitely booked, and that's the only clear booking that I have right now. I have a few other opportunities. Um I'll probably head down to some Origins and meet up with some good producing friends. Um I always love to travel and learn from my coffee friends around the world, so I'm excited for what is to come in that regard. World of Coffee, I'm really interested in just because this is the first year that it's World of Coffee and not SCA Expo. Uh, we talked about this in like an older, like maybe the first or second episode on Tiny Sidegar, what is SCA Expo? And it's this grand adventure of a whirlwind of a time where lots of caffeine is had and lots of caffeine is necessary to have all the conversations and meet all of the people. Um, but world of coffee is something that was started, I want to say like a few years ago. I'm not exactly sure though, so don't quote me, but something that I'm really curious about is just there's different aspects of World of Coffee that I've been excited about. Like I believe it was in Jakarta they had a producer village, and that was the first time that I had seen that at one of the shows, and in my first peeks at what is happening in San Diego, there is a producer village, which I think is just a great learning opportunity. And again, I think that producers do so much in the coffee world, obviously, and I feel like there's not a lot of opportunity to see that work unless you're going to Origin, and I feel like it's very infrequent that we get to go and do that, and so being able to highlight the work that's done at Origin is really special. So I'm curious to see what that plays out to be. Um, there's also the World Latte Art Championship at the San Diego uh World of Coffee, so I'm stoked for that. I love the competitions I've talked about her before, but Laura Co. is the current um brewing champion of Spain, and seeing her side of the world, even just like the tiniest bit that I did when I was with her for Women Powered Coffee Summit, was eye-opening. It's just a completely different world that I'm not involved in, but I love to watch it. Um brewing championships I think are really cool. I love the Barista Championships. The roasting championships chip chip, the roasting championship, I guess, um, that happened last year at SCA was harder for me to get into just because of what you're doing when you're roasting, and also because I feel like so many people to see and meet. So but I will be pulling up for the latte art. I just there is so beautiful. Every aspect of coffee is beautiful, but I love watching people do some dang good latte art, and it's something that I am not good at. I can make you a heart, I can make you a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I by no means am a latte artist. And I always love taking photos of sad latte art, no matter how big or small. It's just so impressive. So, anyway, um, World of Coffee San Diego is definitely coming my way. I'm very, very excited about it. Very excited about some origin travel, very excited about meeting up, possibly doing some like little tours of tiny sidecar around the States. This is like tour is a hard like that's not the right word in any way, but it's just going and visiting more shops, trying more coffee. Um, something else that I'm doing on Instagram. There's a post that is highlighting female roasting companies and lots of recommendations of different roasters around. And so I've started purchasing some of those coffees. I'm gonna highlight those coffees on Instagram and just try to elevate more female roasting companies because I love a female roaster, and also continue to like showcase other uh producers, other cafe owners, um the marketing side of the world, like all sorts of really cool women that are making powerful moves in coffee. It's all coming our way. So if you have any uh recommendations or anyone that you want me to take a peek at, I always want them from you. And speaking of amazing, powerful women in coffee, the first clip for today from the Women Powered Coffee Summit actually comes from a very, very fun. Spunky is the word that comes to mind. And I don't know if she would like that or not, but like high energy, very fun, exciting person for you to meet. So why don't we get into that, shall we?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Hi, my name is Natalie Van Duzen. I'm the founder and owner of Treeline Coffee Roasters in Bozeman, Montana. Um, I uh got started in coffee well at a really young age. At like six, I was stealing coffee out of my parents' coffee pot in the morning. I would bring them their coffee and then doctor up my own, which was mostly milk and sugar, but I've always just loved coffee. Um and I love coffee shop culture and coffee shop just coffee things around coffee, but in 2008 I was on a motorcycle trip in South America and had the opportunity to visit a farmer in Colombia, and I just my whole head exploded. I realized while I loved this thing, I just really knew nothing about it. And it was such a cool opportunity to get to see the farm and understand the processing, and then he showed us how to roast on the whole skillet and his back yard, and it was magical. I just I think it was sort of one of those aha moments in my life. Um, and so when I relocated to Bozeman, I felt like I had an opportunity to build a business around this idea of like harmed cup type coffee and really trying to connect the dots between people growing coffee and us consuming it, and so we built a roastery with our roaster right in the middle of the room so customers can ask questions and talk to us and learn, and they can be as nerdy about it as they wanted to, or not! Um, and that we were just trying to create more opportunities for conversation about coffee and and just how much we love it. So that's what that's okay. Oh my gosh, I know you asked this question about my I it's so hard, I think I'm just so inspired by all the women that work in coffee, and that there's so many women working in so many pieces of coffee, but I think it's really special being at a conference like this where it's really being elevated and talked about, and I think like when I started roasting in 2013, I think I was told that like 20 or no 12% of roasters were women. I think that's probably double that amount, maybe it's more, but it's like we're so underrepresented in in roasting, which is the piece I know, but I think throughout we're involved. You know, we're here and we're working in coffee, and so I think it's really cool to see women taking ownership of their peace in the process and like what they have to give and like where where coffee shows up for them and where they can show up in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Hi, I'm Miko Hare and I'm the COO of Mountain Harvest in Uganda. Um we started Mountain Harvest in 2017, really desiring a specialty coffee company that was fueled by local voices and local solutions. And so we are a staff of 54 people that are meant to be experts in Ugandan coffee in a space that there isn't deemed experts. Um my role is to resource them, to teach them, and tell them that their lived experiences is professional and teach them how to communicate that. Um at Mountain Harvest, we are exporters, we're producers, and we're farmer services providers. So our ultimate mission is to challenge the SAS quo of Uganda coffee production, um, envisioning a future where smallholder farmers aren't surviving. Like so much of the data is asking about livelihoods. We believe that farmers should feel like they're thriving and that they're a part of the industry. So we have farmer services that focus on regenerative agriculture, income diversification, um, quality training and infrastructure, financial literacy and microfinance, and professionalism. Because Uganda is half the population is 17 years old and under. And so when they see that their entry point to being a part of this big business of Uganda is being a 64-year-old farmer, a man, um, they don't really feel like they can be a part of that. And it is their heritage, it is their story, and we we really want to ensure that Ugandans are claiming it for themselves. So out of our staff, um we have 50% of the managers are women. Um out of our C-suite staff, it's two men and one woman, myself. Um, and our our goal is in in 2021, we wrote a gender inclusion strategy and tried to understand how we can create gender inclusion in a way that makes sense to the local culture. Because I think in a global world, we we believe it should look one way, but it doesn't have to, and that's kind of the beauty of it. Um, and I think by with local um innovations and solutions, you actually make headway in a really wonderful way because it makes sense to the people that you're trying to make impact on. And so some of some of the gender strategy is common sense, but if it were common sense, more people would be doing it. So, understanding the challenges of women in these local communities, like there's something called time poverty, and I think a lot of people in the world would love to see more women in leadership, but a lot of women working in this industry have time poverty and they're doing everything. So, in the Ugandan context, the man is considered the farmer or the business owner officially. So, in a cooperative space or on record or registered with local governments, they're the farmer. But the women are doing the labor of coffee. And so we drastically changed how we trained, when we trained, um, and where we did that, because if you wanted to make impact, you have to actually go to the people doing the farming, which is the women of the household. So we we train and we hold meetings at times when um it's not conflicting with traditional um household tasks. Um we hold meetings and trainings in spaces very close to where their homesteads are so that they don't have to leave or ask permission or anything like that. It can be just walk outside and have the meeting. Um and and then we also we formulated women's focus groups where it made sense and when where they wanted that, and we we have a lot of information on who's kind of leading innovations in in good quality, and we uplift those women as leaders within those groups. Um, where we market women's coffee, we didn't want to just market women's coffee for the sake of market, we wanted it to be completely embedded in transformation. So what we did is within those women's groups, we created a three-year plan and a business plan with those women. And so every every year, as they created consistency as a group, I might partner them with a succinct buyer, and every year they create got a higher premium due to their consistency. We already pay 30% more for the coffee than everyone else market price, and we do a second payment, these women get a third payment. So that transformation has they have to be a part of it and they have to be rewarded for it. And it has to be embedded in their business. Yeah. Yeah. Um, six years. Yeah. Oh my gosh, great question. Um, so I I like to start this answer with the fact that when I was young, um I lived and was exposed on and off to different cultures. Um I I was exposed and living in the Dominican Republic, but living and working with Haitian immigrants, sugarcane workers. And so my entire academic career, I wanted to understand why the people I loved were put in those situations. And so I studied politics and political science and women's studies. Um because I just didn't get it. I wanted to understand how how something like sugar could keep people in that cycle of poverty. And um and so yeah, every paper that I wrote, I wanted to understand that and kind of made that my case study. Um and I thought the natural progression would be to be in international development, and I was really kind of pushed in that way, but ultimately I decided, you know, I I was doing that work a little bit, and I felt like what am I really offering these people? I was hired in that situation because I grew up with those people, but I was being told to like project manage something that those people didn't even want, and I was really struggling with like, am I just bringing these people my whiteness and my bachelor's degree? That makes no sense to me. And so I decided nonprofit work wasn't the best fit for me. Um, and I I found my way into working in DV and SA for women in local communities. Ultimately, I realized one, it was a world-class education on power, just like my political science degree. Um, but I'm a workaholic and I took things like it, it was too much. I can't separate myself, so I wasn't the right fit for that job. Um and then I started studying agriculture and permaculture, um and ultimately it happened by working with poor friend in a coffee shop, stacking bags, and being at a point in my life where I cared about so much but didn't know what I had to offer the world. And all of a sudden I realized that this entire time, my whole life, I was studying supply chains and I didn't even know it. And I was looking at bags of coffee and being like, oh, this is the certification. Oh, this is a farmer, and there's this cool thing I'm doing, it's hospitality and caring about my local community. A value chain is like a really cool way to make impact on the world if you're aligned with the right people. Um, so I um I decided to find a roaster that I thought was saying the right words, and I had a job that was like paying my bills, and told myself I'm going to work for a roaster for a year and treat it like a paid internship. So I felt like if it's not the thing, that's okay. Um, and it turned out like under that year I was running the company and like fully in love, and I just feel like so much of us come to coffee because I think coffee almost chooses us because I think it's something that's asking to be healed, because it's such a product of sin and um violence, and I think all of us are are called to it because we're like this thing is asking to be healed, and I think it's so cool, um, and that's just like really awesome that everyone across the supply chain, including Barista, can show love by serving someone well, and that's just amazing. So I fell in love. It's calling us, it's calling us. Um, it's like this beautiful lens to care about so many things. When when I was an educator to baristas and they're like, what Nico, what can I do? Like, I really like this thing, but like can I be a barista and make a living income? And we're like, I don't know, buddy. I'm not sure if that's the thing, but whatever you're talented in, if it's science, it's a if it's agronomy, um, hey, we need more people that understand finance. Like, you can bring it to coffee, and that's kind of the most beautiful thing, and we need it. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So great to meet you.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

It's so incredible to re-listen to Natalie and Nico and their perspectives on both our individual journey and coffee, but also what coffee does around the world and who comes to coffee. I remember walking away from one Natalie's energy is like pure sunshine in a person, and it's hard to not feel joy when you're around her. And it's one reason why I added her to this episode is that like we could all use a little bit of Natalie's energy and joy. And I specifically remember walking away from Nico and one feeling like incredibly blessed is not maybe the word, but like her perspective on how coffee is calling different people from different backgrounds to come and heal it, really resonated with me in the sense of like I'm always amazed by where people start in their world and how they end up in coffee, and then the projects and the work and everything they're doing, just from like the very scientific background to the very social background. Such different people from different walks of life all enjoy this thing and want this thing to thrive. And it's just it's really interesting to hear someone talk about it so beautifully. So that was Natalie and Eco. They're both wonderful, incredible women in the coffee industry, and so lucky to have met both of them down in Mexico. So I hope it made your day a little better hearing from their perspective because it definitely made my day better. And with that, I think I should wrap up today's episode. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, you know. Um, next week, I'm going to be releasing an episode that will be primarily in Spanish. There's a lot of beautiful perspectives from women from Mexico that speak only in Spanish. And what I have found is the best way to listen to it is to listen to their voices so there will be no translation during the episode. I think I'm a hundred percent sure of that. And listen to their voices at have your Google translate on conversation mode, and it will translate for you as they're speaking. I am really excited for next week. I think it's a really special, special episode, and it's always just a pleasure to have you here. So I'll see you around. I hope you have a wonderful week, and I hope you take care of yourself. See you next time.