Not many people have the possibility of knowing the details of growing coffee and even less the chance to visit a coffee plantation. My blog has been about some of the people involved in the delicate -and strenuous- chores of producing good quality coffee presenting the persons who dedicate their lives to coffee, not as a commodity but as the fragrant fruit of their loving work. Now I want to give you guys a few numbers to ponder over your next steaming cup or refreshing glass of iced coffee.

OBDULIA PEÑA

This courageous woman, widowed many years ago, raised and educated four children who are now active professionals. She runs 1.5 HA Finca La Isla near the tidy village of Pueblo Nuevo in the Guayabal de Síquima municipality, where she lives with one of her daughters and a granddaughter, who assist Doña Obdulia in the finca´s chores.

Victor Prieto is tall, soft-spoken and sturdy as the mountains surrounding his 2 hectare FINCA EL CONSUELO, which he and his wife Cecilia have operated for 22 years. Their strength and dedication have allowed them to raise 9 children; all of them are respected professionals living in several cities of Colombia.

Alicia Murcia is a retired school teacher who, along with her daughter Isaura Bermudez also a retired school teacher, run the family's estate of FINCA EL CARMELO, founded 72 years ago by their forefathers.

Initially, the hacienda was named Cafetal El Porvenir and in the exquisitely preserved original house (see photo in the first part of this blog), Orlando has kept in mint condition several of the accounting books, the harvest logs and a notebook that amazed me.

A Briton by the name of James Tyrrell Moore (London 1803 - Bogotá 1881) landed in Colombia in 1829 and, after several ventures as an engineer mining gold, building furnaces and promoting a diversity of projects, he settled in Cundinamarca, where he bought land and began planting coffees; in 1868 he patented a coffee drying machine and set the foundations of a well-organized coffee plantation.