Yibeiry Flores
Finca Las Cuevitas
The women of our family are courage and passion.
The women in our family live with courage and passion. We are descendants of the Lenca ethnic group and feel deeply connected to our roots and traditions. For four generations, we have cultivated our land with love and respect, honoring the legacy of those who came before us.
Our history is woven with effort and perseverance. We are women who cultivate with our hands and fight with our hearts. My grandmother started working the land when she was a child, and now, more than seven decades later, she is still going strong and strong. It was she who taught me to pick coffee and take care of the land during holidays, when I was not in school.
I still so well remember my childhood. Our house is less than a hundred meters from the river, just like the school that I went to when I was little. During the warm months, when the coffee plants were flourishing but before they grew new beans, we used to run from our house to the river to bathe and make fun. Sometimes, when it was just too warm to be bearable, we ran straight from school into the water, without even bothering to drop our backpacks off at home first.
That, our parents didn’t necessarily like, but we were young and all we thought about was having fun and freshen up. All those adventures that we shared when we were children in our small community created bonds for life. We shared meals, homework, and we learned how sharing joy would lead to more joy, while sharing problems lessened the burden on our shoulders.
Now that I’m an adult, I work hand in hand with three generations of our family and with the other members of our community as well. Mostly women because so many of the young men in our hamlet left in search of a better life in the US.
I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to get a university degree thanks to a scholarship from the ‘Friends of Coffee Foundation’. I have participated in volunteer work within the social sector of coffee growing and have built a career around this.
I started in a coffee cooperative, then I collaborated in consultancies for projects focused on coffee, business development and community resilience. In addition, I have had the honor of training as a Q-grader, further strengthening my knowledge of this passion that has been the engine of my growth.
Those experiences, both educational and professional, have shaped my life because they opened a world for me. I have learned how to prepare high quality coffees and have also learned how to present myself and my coffees to roasters, how to connect with potential business partners. So now I use that experience to help other farmers in our community to also enhance the quality of their coffee lots and find a market together, as a group.
As for my own land, I currently have 4 hectares with coffee crop, but I have another 3,5 hectares that I am currently developing. Because the land is located at 1750 meters, in the middle of a pine forest, there is abundant natural shade, and my crop ripens slowly but in a controlled, steady way. I plan to plant some peach and citric trees too, on the few spots where there is no shadow from pine trees yet.
In the meanwhile, my grandparents continue to be a solid and joyful presence in my life. My grandfather is now 86 (in 2025) and he is the one who dries and prepares most our coffees. His perseverance and wealth of experience are a major example for me. I can only dream of living such a long and healthy life myself.
Come and visit us in our village or our finca! You can enjoy a cup of coffee with us or splash in the river to freshen up after a long, long trip to get here!
Farm Facts
4 hectares cultivated at 1750 meters. An additional 3,5 hectares under development.
Shadow from pine trees
Varietals: IH-Café 90, Lempira, San Ramón
