Our Story
After years of visiting my wife's hometown Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia and dreaming of living there someday we decided to make the big move in 2016. Since we're not independently wealthy we had to figure out a way to make a living while living in Colombia that we'd both enjoy and do together. Since we're big into organic living, gardening and nature we decided to buy a coffee farm and work it ourselves. After months of searching we finally found a coffee farm outside the city that was perfect, it didn't take long to make the decision and purchase the farm. So why not! We sold everything we owned & bought it...then got ready for the big move..no easy task, but that’s a whole other story.
Once we got here we met the "worker" family that the past owner employed to manage the farm who also lived on the property. Not yet knowing how badly we needed them we thought to ourselves...."do we really need help?" That thought quickly faded into oblivion after we realized the work involved running a productive coffee/banana/plantain farm. Now we realize what a Godsend our worker Javier has been, a better more knowledgeable worker we have never met at any level. What he's able to accomplish daily still amazes us and we know this dream of ours would not be possible without Javier and his family, wife Soreida and son Diego. Lucky us. We quickly realized that the hard working coffee farmers are grossly underpaid by today's standards. The local co-ops that purchase coffee from small farms all across the region pay the lowest amount possible by market standards. Large farms from tens to hundreds of hectares of land producing coffee can make a good living but the small farms can really struggle to get by. So, being one of those small farms we had to think of a way to maximize profit to keep our dream alive and hopefully help others in the process.
Single origin, single estate, single family.
Since single estate coffee is easy to trace, it naturally has different tastes & flavors because of the specific growing & processing conditions on that particular farm. Also, the flavor of coffee depends on many important factors like soil, climate, cultivation settings, shade, plant variety, altitude & processing method. Being a single estate, single farm coffee gives you a good idea on how consistent the taste will be as we're in control of every step of the process. Thanks to our farm manager Javier's (born & raised very close to our farm) lifetime of experience growing & managing coffee farms and our extreme dedication to quality control, the resulting coffee is always delicious and will only improve with age. Café Zentimana is a single estate coffee (Finca Timana), sitting at 5410ft. with two-thirds of it's border being a natural river flowing from the volcanic region of Nevada Del Ruiz which is still active & only about 30 miles away. The benefits of this is rich volcanic soil is a very fertile earth here at Finca Timana that our plants absolutely love. We produce our coffee without the use of pesticides (bugs) or herbicides (weeds) because we believe in an organic lifestyle for us and all our plants.....but without the official "organic" label (not big fans). We compost everything and produce very little waste per month and we only use natural spring water here at the farm.
Why Choose Us
There are many wonderful coffee brands out there to buy and enjoy, from small farmers to giant corporate run farms....what sets us apart?
We listen to those who know best, those here in Colombia that know coffee inside and out, who have grown up, generation after generation dealing with every aspect of the coffee business. With our farm manager Javier's help & vast experience we work together to grow and process the very best coffee we can....then trust the roasting experts here to finish it off to perfection.
We take that knowledge and advice to heart and work hard to do things the right way, to compensate those who deserve it, and create a coffee for all to enjoy. We are not absentee land owners who direct from afar, we live & work here in Colombia on our farm each day trying to make our dream come true...... very hard work indeed, but a true labor of love.