Caramel Hump

Luis, or Marino as he’s known by friends and family, is a lifelong coffee grower and avocado grower who lives in the town of San Agustin. While this may seem strange to us from a distance, it also reflects a growing problem in Colombia, many feel it is too dangerous to live on their farms due to the increased threat of violence and robbery in the countryside. Indeed, many other members of Luis’ family decided to move away from their farms after living harrowing experiences with local criminal elements.

Regardless of that, Marino – like the rest of the Ortega family that we work with via Monkaaba – traces his roots back to coffee for nearly 40 years. Now 56 years old, he began working his lot at the age of 16 but was forced to leave for two years as part of mandatory military service. Upon his return, he continued to work and at the age of 20 bought a piece of his land where he began with 1800 Caturra trees and it was here that he saw a great life opportunity to begin a coffee grower. Over the years, he and his siblings have expressed many times their nostalgia for times past when it was much easier to be a smallholder coffee grower - when yields were high, costs were low, and coffee leaf rust didn’t plague their crops.

Marino would grow and sell his coffee either en verde or in parchment on the national market as his principal means of living for decades before having a negative experience with disease-resistant varieties that gave him pause. At the suggestion of the FNC, he planted 20,000 Castillo trees when this variety was released in the year 2010, only to discover that the quality of this variety was very low.

Regardless, with this massive investment in these varieties, he did his best to find a better market for them. Many of his extended family were members of the growers' association Los Naranjos, and through this, he managed to sell some of his harvests at a slightly higher price to be placed in their blend. However, he was unable to find access to a specialty market or to a dedicated buyer with traceability.

As such, until 2021, Marino sold all of his production to the national market or major international buyers for market price or perhaps a slight premium. The success of his lots this year is a testament to his total dedication to coffee growing. Rather than being defeated by these struggles with Castillo, he began slowly replacing them with new, higher-quality varieties, such as this lot of Pink Bourbon.
Five years after planting, Marino’s care for quality has shown through in these lots, as each one has been consistently excellent. The quantity has now moved up as well, giving hope for the future. Most importantly, we’ve been happy to recognize Marino for all his years of hard work.