Emelina Amaya, El Aguacate Farm

She didn't dare to be interviewed for this presentation and locked herself in her room when we came to visit her. Not for lack of a story, but probably (we couldn't ask...) because she thinks it's not worth it.

That, of course, is absolutely false. Anyone who's ever tasted her coffee will agree. And even if her coffee wasn't good, Emelina's life story would still be worth telling. Fortunately, her right-hand man, Leyton, was happy to share snippets of his boss's life with us.

Leyton is 30 years old (as of 2024) and has worked with Emelina since the beginning, when she started growing coffee back in 2015. As a child, Leyton had worked with his father on his family's coffee plot, and by the age of 22, he already had more than a decade of experience in the field. Emelina hired him because managing 3.5 hectares was too much for her alone, and her three children were too young to help.

Furthermore, she didn't want her children to drop out of school, because that's what had happened to her as a child, and to so many others around her. Now, nine years later, her two daughters are in college, and that's largely thanks to Emelina's perseverance, strength, and hard work. Her son, too young to go to college, also seemed happy when we found him at the house. Leyton has worked alongside Emelina all these years. They've overcome numerous obstacles: rust, two hurricanes, landslides, floods, prices below the cost of production; it certainly has never been easy, and it probably never will be.

But—and this is a very good but—this year, Sarah Berge, co-owner of the Ray&Jules roastery in faraway Belgium, came to visit us at Cafesmo and was immediately blown away by Emelina's coffee when she tasted it—blind—at our tasting table, where Emelina's coffee stood out among a dozen comparable lots. It was a success, and the fact that Emelina was a woman made it even better for Sarah, who is always trying to connect with women producers!

When we told Leyton that his coffee—because, frankly, Leyton deserves some of the credit too—had become a hit in Belgium, we could see his eyes light up. And then we asked, a little too loudly, if they could make the same coffee for Ray & Jules next year. We hoped Emelina heard us, but we'll have to wait a year to find out if she did, from the room where she was still hiding.