In the realm of coffee, the offerings of a patriarch stand tall, a man whose progeny have become renowned as some of the finest cultivators in the world. Jairo, a figure of quiet strength, joined the ranks of his sons with measured pace, as they ushered forth the fourth wave of Colombian specialty. Now fully immersed in their shared pursuit, he nurtures the soil that yields our most fervently sought reserves, among them the illustrious Gesha. In this hallowed bean lies the culmination of a journey, a testament to the power of legacy and the unyielding devotion to the craft.
The tale of Jairo and Felipe Arcila is a saga of coffee success, spanning generations. Jairo, a stalwart producer in the Colombian coffee industry, had amassed knowledge, respect, and deeply ingrained opinions about his numerous coffee farms over the years. He held no illusions about the industry and believed that engineering was a more promising path for his sons. Like many Colombian farmers, Jairo had spent his life toiling in the dirt, tending to his crops with sweat and care. Coffee was a familiarity for him, a comfort, but he never dreamed of passing on the mantle of coffee production and trade to his children.
And yet, fate can be a sly mistress. Felipe and his brother parlayed their engineering degrees into lucrative careers in Australia, far removed from the dusty coffee fields of their youth. But life has a funny way of bringing things full circle, of returning us to the roots of our being. Felipe and his brother stumbled upon the burgeoning specialty coffee market in Australia and began to see a different side of coffee. A side of coffee that was exotic, rare, and luxurious. A side of coffee that reimagined the drink as something akin to the world of wine.
Felipe was especially enamored with this brave, new coffee world. He saw in it a wealth of opportunities for experimentation, for pushing the boundaries of what was possible. He returned to Colombia, brimming with ideas, and enthusiastic to share them with his father. But Jairo was a man set in his ways. Old school. He had earned his stripes the hard way, and saw no need to change the tried-and-true coffee-making methodologies that had worked for him and his family for generations.
So Felipe resolved to strike out on his own. He turned to other farmers for assistance in developing new coffee processing methods, and forged pathways where none existed before. He developed some of the very first natural processed coffees in the country and began to diversify the coffee business by building an exporting network that was innovative and on the forefront of new cultural changes.
Years passed, and Felipe continued to push boundaries, to innovate, to bring newness and excitement to an industry that until recently was dulled by those who had been in charge for generations. His work caught the attention of enthusiastic coffee buyers around the world, including those who were willing to take a risk on something new. One such risk-taker was me. When I met Felipe, I saw in him an intensity and a hunger that I resonated deeply with, one which says everything is possible, and his vision for the future stretched out before me like a vast and unexplored land.
The coffees that he produced were some of the finest and most exotic that I had ever tasted, possessing an energy and an electricity that spoke of youth, experimentation, and daring. I knew that his efforts represented the cutting edge of a new era in coffee that would soon sweep the world off its feet.
Felipe’s crowning achievement is his newest flagship farm; Jardines del Eden, a farm like no other, which is becoming a reference for many of the current trends in the speciality coffee industry.
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