The force. Marisol Medina Camero is the strength of the coffee woman in the middle of a society that told her what she could not do. At the age of 20 she was reborn. It was when she got married and met the coffee. Now, along with her husband Gerardo Silva, they own three farms in the largest grain producing department in Colombia.

In the center of San Andrés, in the municipality of La Plata, is the Altamirano land with the largest coffee plantations, on the remains of an indigenous cemetery. The strength of Marisol comes from the ancestors who left their tombs there since the nineteenth century and her character as a peasant woman and now a member of the Association of Women Coffeemakers of La Plata ‘Las Marias’.

Mint and red berries are the notes of her coffee. Marisol takes care of the collection, the benefit, the drying and the sale. Before she was afraid, but not anymore. Being a coffee farmer has given her the courage to learn in the company of other women and overcome stereotypes. She is convinced that doing what you want, with enthusiasm, makes the way easier.

Thousands of red fruits are harvested in each harvest of El Nogal farm. The number is indecipherable but Don Misael Losada Lemus, the owner, knows that it can become 30 loads of dry parchment coffee per hectare cultivated. Chosen with the utmost care, the grains have received the benefits of the nearby volcanic zone and the fog that has descended from the moor.

Its 20,000 coffee trees are distributed in four hectares located at 1650 meters above sea level. It is the land to produce a unique coffee, the dream that woke him since he was a child and followed it later when he inherited a small piece of land that has grown to this day.

He has worked for his family, consisting of his wife and four children. The pride of being a coffee grower takes him in the smile that is drawn on his face when he talks about his coffee plantations, where he cares for the quality of the cup with minute processes that do not affect nearby water sources and protect the flora that surrounds the crop. It is for him his gold mine, the land that has given him everything.

Never stop planting is the slogan of Ramiro Suárez Ramos. The rows well traced in the coffee plantations of the department of Caldas, in Colombia, made him dream when he was 22 years old. From that moment he declared himself in love with coffee and promised that he would never stop working.

On the slopes of the municipality of Acevedo, south of Huila, began its challenge planting 1200 trees variety caturra. Then he wanted to reach 5000, to 10,000, to 20,000, to 50,000. Today he is proud of what he has achieved with his family: he estimates that he has 75,000 trees on three farms that he visits every day of the week.

His coffee plantations are surrounded by forest, wildlife corridors. There are also banana and fruit trees like orange, lemon, mandarin or carambolo. In fertile and almost vertical lands, Ramiro makes his life that is none other than the field. And as he likes to sow, the coffee seed germinated in his son José Napoleón who today helps him to manage the yearning of being bigger and bigger.

Orlando Babativa has always had great faith in coffee. As a child he traveled with his family from Cundinamarca, Colombia, to the department of Huila and has lived there since then. He made a complete school of coffee plantations, tending seedlings, sowing in the furrows, fertilizing and harvesting. It began when his father was butler in farms cultivated with coffee and later he was dedicated to be collector.

His land in the municipality of Acevedo is a pending in which he realized the aspiration to have his own coffee company. It is there that he demonstrates his pride of having been a worker, creating conditions of comfort for the men and women who work for him.

He remembers to perfection that it was the 4 of August of 1988 when sowed its first trees in three hectares of earth. Today it has 28 hectares between 1300 and 1500 meters above sea level. To that place in which it harvests the special coffee that one day placed it tenth in the contest Mug of the Excellence, has called it the Paradise.

José Ramón Collazos was born in the middle of the coffee plantations in the village of San Isidro in the municipality of Acevedo, south of the department of Huila. In his blood he carries the coffee tradition that his father left him when the typical ones were the variety that prevailed in those mountains. Then came the caturra and the technification of the crop. With each new process he must undertake in his life as a coffee-maker, he is sure that he will never finish learning.

Of the 50 hectares of its farm, 38 are planted with coffee. At the top of the hill, with a privileged view of the region’s great mountain range, Don Ramón selected the 2500 kilo microlote to participate in the Cup of Excellence competition of 2005. The jury chose him as the fourth best among coffees of all Colombia.

In the harvest always choose the best grains to get that cup of herbal notes and high average acidity. The improvement of the production practices is constant to maintain the quality and for that reason its clear purpose is to continue doing the things well next to his wife Maria of the Rosary Ariza. She, a public accountant, helps with the accounts. He, of a coffee breed, knows that there will be no different way of dying that is not surrounded by coffee.

Of cane juice, yellow fruits, chocolate and caramel are the notes of the coffee of Jon Fredy Rodríguez Sánchez. He has been consuming it at home for three years and he has more than decided that he wanted to be a coffee grower that would make a difference, with a market for his special cup.

At 1927 meters above sea level is the La Amapolita farm that he bought from his aunt. It was the year 1999 and their lands were mainly dedicated to producing meat and milk, with only 3,000 coffee trees. Today he has planted 15,600 and the goal is to reach 20,000 in the near future. Meanwhile, his 11-year-old son John Eider dreams of being a taster and helping to promote the crops that are produced there.

As a family, they gather the mature grains during the mornings, in the lots supervised by the mountains. Between the rows of caturra, Castillo and Colombia there are plantain bushes and very close to an avocado hass crop. There in the village of Las Juntas in the municipality of Tello, north of Huila, there is Jon Fredy’s obsession: La Amapolita, his family and his love for coffee.