The mirror

Sao Roque Curitiba Mariano plantation, Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais, Brazil, November 1, 2012

Brazil was the first stop on my journey of the coffee world. I went there to try to comprehend the impact of the AAA Nespresso program on the lives of these coffee production workers.
On the plantation of São Roque Curitiba Mariano, workers meticulously prune the coffee trees with surgical precision. This image became symbolic of my first encounter with these workers: the care and attention bestowed on the coffee.
As I am entering their land, I introduce myself as someone who will be photographing their work, that way they can see me as a kind of “cultivator” of images. I showed them one of my books. After flipping through several pages, José Rovilson Ribeiro asks me a series of questions. After this I say to him: “Now it is your turn.”
He took off his hat and placed it over his heart. In the elegance of his gesture, I saw the respect and devotion that this man felt for the visual account that I would make of his life as a coffee cultivator, playing an important part in humanity.

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On the ancestral roads of the coffee fields, the humanist photographer Reza, after an immersive work of several months, discovers the plantations of India, Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, Ethiopia and South Sudan, supported since 2003 by the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality™ program.

Through the testimonies of the photographer and the coffee producers, farmers and agronomists, these photos shows the voice and perspective coming from the community involved in the production of coffee. Work, dignity and tradition are highlighted through the actions carried out in plantations. Between poetry and visual testimony, Reza honors the hands of the people cultivating the coffee, as well as the long term commitments to development and to quality. From the immaculate flowers to the delicate red cherries that men and women seek on the often abrupt mountainsides, the highly demanding coffee culture is here revealed.
 

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