Colombia / Finca El Silencio

Sara Gutierrez’s farm, Finca El Silencio is aptly named. The farm rests in Colombia’s central mountain range in Filandia, Quindio, the heart of Colombia’s coffee ring. From  the farm you can see the small town of Quindio while sipping on yummy brews and listening to the quietude of the birds and wind in the trees. Sara herself has a quiet calmness to her. She tells the story of passing Finca El Silencio as a child, and how her father always insisted “someday this farm will be yours”. He held his promise, and Sara, third-generation coffee farmer, now owns the farm and is bringing super polished coffee offerings to the market. The day we spent with Sara, we walked the farm, visited her processing facilities and enjoyed a delightful 20+ person family lunch hosted in her open-air dining room.
 
Sara has had many opportunities to leave Colombia to pursue education and a life abroad, as many young people of agricultural families do. But Sara decided to stay and dig in deeper. In addition to being an incredibly talented producer, she has a degree in business administration which helps her run the business side of the farm. The farm practices non-abrasive pruning, swears to never use herbicides, and uses the natural pollinators from the farm’s apiary. 
 
We love that this coffee is women-produced and women-roasted! We hope to forge a deep and long relationship with Sara. Relationship-based buying is at the center of our buy strategy. We can create more sustainability in our own supply chain when we better understand the people in it as more than cogs in the chain of production. We hope you will enjoy this beautiful coffee!