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An end to second-hand coffee

To the naked eye, this farm is just like any other. But it doesn’t take long to realise that the farm of Jesus Martin, though not huge, is anything but ordinary.

Martin grew up like many others in the Santa Ana Valley $–$ known as the Coffee Triangle of Colombia $–$ on a coffee farm owned by his father and grandfather. “I am the youngest of six children and we all worked the farm,” Martin said. “My parents focused their energies on teaching us the agricultural trade, but also the love behind it.” Despite this great dedication to coffee and respect for his family business, he ended up pursuing a different career altogether: law and business management. It didn’t come easy to him as coffee was never far away.

During every visit to his family’s humble farm, the rich aromas of beans roasting and the smell of his mother’s carrot cake caused his heart to beat faster. Coffee was his life, and in 2004, after years practicing law, he found a way to combine his legal knowledge, business education and family’s lifeline into what he called “the coffee dream project”.

Despite growing some of the most coveted beans in the world, most Colombians have never even tasted the Colombian coffee that is renowned around the world. Instead, local people drink what they call “second-hand coffee”, which is made from berries that haven't fully ripened, have been over-roasted or even infected with insects and diseases. Like most businesses in struggling economies, the farmers only make profits on exports $–$ so they save their best stuff for higher paying countries.“Farming coffee for a profit is very challenging,” Martin explained, tossing a few berries in his hand. “The coffee trade intermediaries, exporters, roasters and big multinational companies are the ones that benefit the most in the coffee-trade chain.” Martin’s dream project, however, was to turn this process around, bringing specialty coffee back to Colombia.

The project, however, was a total surprise for his family. “When I first informed them, they told me I was crazy, they said it was a wild goose chase.”

Even with his background in farming, starting the project from the ground up was difficult. Convincing his workers to focus on quality was his biggest concern; most only cared about quantity since their wage was dependent on how many beans they picked. Martin recalled many hours, days and weeks training local farmers to understand the process, from the colours of the raw berries to the smell and taste of the beans once they’d been dried and sorted.

Once the farmers understood the importance of quality, it was onto phase two: bring the roasting process in-house, instead of paying for the beans to be roasted elsewhere. Buying his own roaster $–$ one of the only five in the entire country $–$ was expensive, but the purchase offered a huge saving in roasting, packaging and exporting costs.

By 2008, his passion started to pay off; he opened his flagship store Café Jesus Martin in Salento. The shop and its team of trained baristas, Martin said, have done much to teach the locals about enjoying specialty coffee. The look on their face when they take their first sip is what keeps him motivated. “They are reacting so positively; they’re discovering something entirely different than what they’re used to consuming,” Martin said. “When they discover the difference in quality of their coffee, they start to care more about where and whom it’s coming from.”