Coffee forms a huge part in most of our daily routines. Taking a moment to pause, relax and switch off, if only for a second, is really important to me. When I tell people that I work for myself and my office is at home they often assume that it must be very relaxing – the dream, right? Whilst I can’t deny commuting to my loft and wearing slippers (and occasionally a blanket) is a great perk, more often than not being self employed means opening my laptop before breakfast, looking up and realising it’s going to be a late lunch and working well into the evening.
Making your own schedule means you have to add a lot of structure to the day – real breaks mean you come back refreshed and bring your best self to the table. My office is on the third floor, so it’s easy to tell myself that I’ll make a drink in five minutes, only to lose myself in a project and realise that five minutes quickly became an hour. With the help of Nespresso I have created a little coffee area in my office which now means taking a break is thankfully much easier.
I now have everything I need up here to make a great cup of coffee, leaf through a magazine and ensure I take time out from my working day. I had never used a capsule-based coffee machine before and in all honesty had a preconceived idea of what the quality would be like compared to my existing espresso machine. I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong and in this case I was, the coffee is rich, smooth and fresh. I can get the perfect espresso or enjoy a cappuccino without leaving my office.
Taste aside, one thing that is truly important to me when I buy coffee is knowing the origins of the product. I like to know where the coffee is sourced and be reassured that the farmers are fairly compensated and the enterprise is sustainable. In 2003 Nespresso launched the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program in collaboration with Rainforest Alliance, an initiative dedicated to discovering sustainable agriculture practices and implementing them at farm level.
Over the past 13 years the program (which now includes 70,000 farmers across 12 countries) has had a direct impact not only on the sustainability of the coffee industry, but the lives of the individual farmers, like Humberto, a coffee farmer in Jardin, Colombia. Working in the community, Nespresso realised that each farm processed coffee differently, which not only meant the quality was inconsistent but that it wasted valuable time for the farmers. Through the AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program, Nespresso built a community mill for the local cooperative, which now guarantees not only consistent quality, but generates a higher income for the farmers and saves them up to 5 hours a day during the harvest.
The impact of this is felt on both a global and personal level. Thanks to the mill Humberto has been able to send his daughter Andrea to university to study biology and the coffee we all drink at home has been produced in a more sustainable fashion. Individually, we can all make choices when it comes to what’s in our cup, but we also rely on companies to take responsibility, ensuring production is sustainable. Through this program and initiatives like the community mill, Nespresso are playing their part.
As well as their sustainability program, Nespresso make it easy to recycle their capsules, something that is very important to me. To recycle yours, all you need to do is request a recycling bag, which can then be easily dropped off at a Nespresso boutique, taken to a Collect Plus location, or even picked up from your doorstep. You can read more about the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program here, and request your recycling bag here. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my coffee break…
This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Nespresso.
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