Karol Ortega // COLOMBIA

From the Importer

While every smallholder we work with in San Agustin is special to us, with a rich and compelling history in coffee that stretches back generations, Karol and her husband Diego Leguizamo are two young growers whom we couldn’t be prouder to represent. In fact, Diego and Karol were two of the original members of the Monkaaba initiative when it started in 2021, pitching in financially to allow for the start-up of the farm-based roasting and cupping lab where all these lots are selected through. Daughter-in-law of Arnulfo Leguizamo, past Cup of Excellence winner in Colombia and a veritable local legend in San Agustin, Karol manages her small 0.5 hectare plot of Sidra within the broader Leguizamo family farm and it is consistently an amazing lot.

Though the Leguizamo-Ortega family has had specialty access in the past, they have nonetheless found themselves desiring more, especially as Diego has taken the helm of the farm. His father’s reputation for exceptional quality led to them procuring above average prices and some international market, but like many growers of the older generation he still often entered each new harvest unsure if his coffees would be purchased and if so, how much would be claimed. This reflects the negative impacts of a quality-focused specialty market that reigns in competitive areas like San Agustin – though there may be more access to buying points that offer differentiated prices, smallholders are continually at the mercy of those who cup their coffee locally and determine its worth by a single sample. It continues to be common for excellent coffees to be scored lower at the buying point level in order to offer lower prices, while then being sold for a microlot price in the exterior. This is the aim of Monkaaba - rather than relying on the word of dispassionate and sometimes completely corrupt buyers who control the price they receive and also keep them at arm’s length from their final clients, Monkaaba was created so that smallholders would have free and unbiased access to information on the quality of their coffee, and on all stages in the coffee supply chain.

Beyond Karol and Diego’s financial implications from the beginning in Monkaaba, Karol has also been a formative member of the Monkaaba team who has jumped at the opportunity to learn as much as she can about the coffee production system past the farm level. She was one of the first members of the community to join as an employee in the bodega and lab, first being in charge of the physical analysis of samples and managing the bodega inventory to now managing the sample roasting.

Her engagement in the lab has set an example for other young women smallholders to get involved in the bodega. For Semilla, this progression shows the realization of the focus of forwarding peripheral smallholders on the supply chain. Going from producers with coffee and no steady buyer, to assessing their own coffees, roasting them, and managing the export and sale of them leads them to a place of increased autonomy and agency, and of course, to an improved accrued value. Karol now also leads up the initative to sell roasted coffee alongside Karen Burbano and Judith Ortega. This began with the use of an Aililo Bullet, donated by Semilla, so Monkaaba could roast coffees for the involved growers at a small fee. For every delivery made of their high quality exportable coffee, a certain amount would be held back for their personal consumption, allowing for growers to not only drink their own coffee, properly roasted, but also eliminating the tendency to drink the burnt, conventional coffee that is routinely the only thing avaialble in Colombia.

Now, this project has grown enough that Karol, Karen, and Judith have had to contract roasting to nearby Pitalito to meet the demand. Their focus now is on developing their own roastery, allowing for the people of San Agustin to have access to high quality coffee at all times in their own town, from their friend, family, and neighbours.

About Monkaaba

Monkaaba is a smallholder coffee grower empowerment initiative based in San Agustin and led by Esnaider Ortega Gomez and select other growers who have worked for many years to sell their coffee as a specialty. Many of them are associated loosely or directly with the Los Naranjos group and have, in recent years, begun to feel that they would like to develop more autonomy over the coffee production as well as involvement in its marketing and sales. Monkaaba’s goal then is to assist other growers in the area to not only find a better market for their coffee, one that pays a solid price, but also to invest in the knowledge and skill of producers in a way that ensures their future success.

The idea for this came to Esnaider thanks to his experience over the last ten years working as a sample roaster and cupper. While he was always happy to see producers receive a solid price for their coffees through this exporter, he noticed that there was very little understanding at the buyer level of what went into coffee production. Too often, he watched coffees produced by people he knew being rejected due to a single cupping session, and for this producer, received little explanation of why it was rejected or what could be improved. What worried him the most was how this process could be confusing or demotivating to producers seeking to enter the specialty market, and he knew there had to be many who were being overlooked as a result.

Over Semilla’s time getting to know Esnaider, he has been nothing but concerned about the overall well-being of all coffee producers in Huila. Rather than focusing only on his own success as a grower, he wants to see all those around him engaged in sustainable, meaningful relationships. Now with Monkaaba, he commits himself to this daily. Not only does he hold weekly cupping sessions for all producers who would like to have their samples evaluated, but he also invites all those willing and interested to come and cup alongside him. The early results have been amazing as he’s collected coffees from all over the area and hosted growers of all levels of experience and age at his farm, to cup and discuss in depth their goals, dreams and challenges. This type of project, we believe, is vital to the future of specialty coffee as a whole and is exactly what Semilla always seeks to support. We wish to see producers engaged in learning about their own product and understanding how to improve it, while our role is then to give feedback and to serve as a conduit of this work to you, the roaster, such that we can develop stronger, more authentic relationships together.