The coffee hunters
“WE’RE FARMERS FIRST AND IMPORTERS SECOND. WE UNDERSTAND THE NEEDS OF PRODUCERS BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE BECAUSE WE HAVE THE SAME NEEDS.”
Carlos Arcila is a farmer first and a businessman second. As a child, he recalls riding horses with his grandfather through the fields of coffee trees in Armenia, Colombia and stopping to taste the different cherries on the farm.
“From a young age I learnt how to distinguish different types of coffee varietals based on their leaf size and shapes. We’d pick a ripe cherry off the tree, pop it into our mouths, and spit out the seed,” Carlos says.
“I learnt to understand its flavour then move to the next varietal and do the same thing. It was like going to a candy shop and trying all the different flavours and comparing them. It was an amazing way to understand the complexity of coffee.”
Carlos was given the tools to
