César Fuentes, Fincas La Aguacotillo and La Barranca

I'm a first-generation coffee farmer, so I learned everything from neighbors and friends. Here in El Pinal, the hamlet where I grew up and have always lived, many of us now grow coffee, and we're a strong and close-knit group. In fact, we blend most of our coffees and sell them to roasters as " El Pinal Premium Blend ."

Thanks to the high altitude (mainly between 1,500 and 1,900 meters, in the middle of pine forests), our combined experience and the good practices that we started to put into practice a few years ago, we are now able to produce relatively large volumes of coffee with a score of around SCA 84, with a consistent and stable profile.

I have a teenage son, Alduvin, and a wife, whom I love very much. My wife, Cristina, always cooks for the pickers during harvest season and also works a lot with our bees.

Because, although I love growing coffee, my wife and I are especially passionate about our bees. We set up our first small hive 21 years ago, when someone convinced us that the "white honey" these bees produce is medicinal, as well as delicious.

We now have 34 beehives, all of which are producing honey very actively. Each hive has between 4,000 and 5,000 bees, allowing us to produce between 80 and 100 liters of our white honey annually. All of it is harvested in March and April, so we sell it frantically during that peak period, providing us with extra income. This is more than helpful because we only own about 1.3 hectares of land for growing coffee. That's barely enough to live on.

Bees are also very effective at pollinating our coffee plants and, at the same time, the farms in the surrounding area. If you're ever near El Pinal, please pay us a visit! You can see our hives (the bees don't sting!), share a cup of coffee with us, or try our delicious honey!