As you see Don Luis standing in the rows of lush coffee trees on his parcel of land, you get the sense that this land means an awful lot to him. At 80+ years old, he stands tall and proud amongst his crop, like an artist would step back to admire a masterpiece.
An original founder of La Cooperativa San Pedrana, Don Luis has spent his entire life around coffee. His father was a coffee farmer and his father's father was a coffee farmer! This is not anomaly, by the way. For Don Luis and many other "campesinos", coffee is not just a way of income - it's in their DNA.
This plot of coffee land provides Don Luis with a connection to his past and a bridge to a future for his family. He works this land hard and carefully, to honor his father and grandfather who farmed it before it, but also so his children and grandchildren may prosper from a prized, renowned Guatemalan coffee.
We never see this side of the coffee supply chain. In America, we see the K-cups, the drip-makers, the coffee shops, and sometimes we see the roasters. But it's the "Don Luises of the world" that make great coffees so special. So much care, precaution, and pleasure has to be invested into each season to get the kind of high quality coffee that we yearn for.
Don Luis can reportedly talk for hours about his life, his farm's history, and his involvement with coffee. How valuable and how fruitful would be to sit and listen to this man talk about his life?
If we strip his product down to a mere commodity, we do Don Luis and his ancestors who farmed the same land a great injustice.
As you drink our Pachup Microlot offering every morning, take a moment and think about Don Luis working the soil around the plant that those beans came from. Imagine a smile on his face, knowing that the coffee he is producing is going to be stellar. Imagine the joy it will bring him to know that his hard work is making you smile - thousands of miles away.