When you’re at your favorite café, do you ever stop to think about where your coffee came from or how it was produced? Yury Wu, owner of Taste of Colombia, hopes to encourage more people to do just that, whether they’re enjoying their brew at her charming café or anywhere else for that matter.
Although Yury is a talented barista, her primary mission is to educate consumers (and producers) about fair trade. Fair trade is all about offering producers in developing countries a fair price for their products — something rarely put into practice, especially by large corporations that monopolize commodities like coffee. Yury hadn’t even heard of fair trade until she came to Canada. “I realized that providing education in my native country was really important. I decided to educate myself about fair trade and pass that knowledge on.” Yury adds that today, she is “the voice bringing this information to Colombia.”