Visiting Our Partners in Colombia: A Journey from Margo’s Perspective

Earlier this month, Jim (our President & CEO) and I returned from an unforgettable origin trip to Colombia. As a father and daughter team, we spent several days traveling through the mountains of Santa Marta and San Pedro, visiting our partner coffee farms and meeting the incredible farmers behind the exceptional Colombian coffee we offer. We have sourced from the Montesierra group for more than a decade, so seeing their breathtaking organic coffee farms and regenerative agriculture practices firsthand was deeply meaningful.

This Colombia origin trip reinforced why relationships in coffee matter, and why our long-standing partnership with Montesierra is so special.

We landed in Santa Marta on November 2nd, immediately surrounded by a landscape that blended ocean views with dramatic mountain ranges. After dinner, we met with Carlos, a local Montesierra farm owner, and Carlos, our exporter, two key partners in our Colombian supply chain.

The next morning, we set out early with Carlos, his son Andrés, and our exporter. From Santa Marta, we began the over two-hour drive to the rural town of San Pedro, where many of the Montesierra coffee farms are located.

The drive alone was an adventure. We quickly left paved roads behind and transitioned into mountain off-roading, climbing steep, rugged terrain surrounded by lush tropical greenery. Reaching San Pedro, located at approximately 1,380 meters above sea level, felt like arriving at the top of the world. The town is home to roughly 1,200 people, many of whom are connected to coffee farming in some way.

We met Carlos’s wife, Ruth, and daughter, Andrea, and paused to take photos at the San Pedro sign overlooking rolling green hills blanketed with coffee plants. The view was nothing short of breathtaking, a perfect introduction to the organic farms we were about to explore.

From town, we continued on to Finca Santa Maria de la Sierra, Carlos’s family farm and one of the standout farms within the Montesierra cooperative. We were warmly welcomed by several members of his extended family who live and work on the farm. Their hospitality set the tone for the rest of our visit.

We began our tour at the top of the mountain, where the main building sits. The path downward was steep, but taking it slowly allowed us to appreciate the nursery filled with coffee seedlings and the many animals, including chickens, fish, and mules, that help support life on the farm.

At the processing pavilion, we observed coffee pickers weighing their day’s harvest of cherries and emptying them into the processing system. Watching the entire coffee cherry journey in person and in real time was one of the most inspiring parts of the trip. The processing begins with a water-based sorting stage, where unripe cherries float to the top and are separated out. 

These unripe cherries are not wasted, they are pulped and transformed into nutrient-rich mulch for the farm and are also used as fuel for the drying station. The ripe cherries continue through depulping, washing, bagging, and drying. This use of their natural resources for compost and process is the heart of organic coffee production.

Seeing Jim handle dried beans in pergamino, the parchment layer that surrounds each dried coffee bean, brought home how much care goes into every step before the beans ever reach a roastery.

We then made our way deeper into the farm to visit the coffee plants themselves. Jim even got to pick cherries alongside the Montesierra pickers. He did great, although the pickers, true pros, made it look effortless.

One of the most memorable moments of the day was seeing pink bourbon coffee cherries growing on the farm.

 Reaching them required a long hike through dense greenery, and by the time we arrived, all of our shoes were soaked from the rich, damp topsoil, but it was more than worth it.

That night, we stayed in San Pedro at Carlos’s family apartment. Carlos and Andrés made a delicious barbecue dinner, and we ended the day sharing stories, food, and laughter, a perfect ending to an already full and inspiring day.

The next morning, we traveled to another Montesierra partner farm, Finca El Carmen. Hiking down the mountain among its coffee plants was absolutely stunning. No photo could ever convey the scale, the depth of color, or the sense of peace that surrounded us.

Jim spent time speaking with Rafael, the farm’s owner, who shared how his team works every single day to increase quality. That commitment to constant improvement is something we see across the entire Montesierra group.

We also met Luis, Carlos’s brother, who owns another farm in the region. He described how, after every picking, his team gives extra care and attention to each coffee tree to enrich the soil.

Hearing him talk with such pride about his workers and his land was truly moving.

After wrapping up in San Pedro, we made our way back to Santa Marta. We shared a final lunch with Carlos’s entire family, including his one-year-old granddaughter, which was the perfect way to conclude the trip.

Leaving Colombia was not easy. Experiencing these farms in person, seeing firsthand the incredible shape they are in, and witnessing the benefits of organic and regenerative coffee farming reaffirmed everything we believe in at Jim’s Organic Coffee. These practices do not just produce exceptional quality, they support the environment, uplift farming families, and strengthen entire communities.

The people of San Pedro have tremendous respect for their land and their work. Being welcomed into their world, even briefly, was an honor.

We are deeply grateful for our partners at Montesierra and for the opportunity to see their dedication and expertise up close.

Visiting Our Partners in Colombia, A Journey from Jim’s Perspective

It is always rewarding to see the farms that produce our wonderful coffee and witness firsthand the deep commitment they have to our shared organic ideals. Of course, it is extra special for me to travel with my daughter, share laughs, and make memories. I should mention that while this was Margo’s first trip to a coffee region, I visited Guatemala with my oldest daughter Josephine some years back, a trip we still reminisce about often.

Margo’s travelogue perfectly summed up the experience. I will add only a few things that stood out to me, a veteran of 40 years in the coffee world.

First, the relationship with Montesierra, the farmer group we visited, is one that continues to impress me. They remembered my visit with them a decade ago, and they still take pride in setting aside their very finest lots of coffee to ship to Jim’s Organic Coffee.

Second, for context, the idea of a “farmer group” like Montesierra is not unique to the coffee world. Sometimes these groups are organized cooperatives, other times they are informal alliances that share information, farming practices, equipment, and economies of scale to produce consistently excellent coffee. Montesierra has about 120 members, each with farms between 40 and 60 hectares, or roughly 100 to 180 acres. These are larger plots than what you might see in Guatemala or Indonesia, but they are by no means large-scale operations.

Finally, as a bit of a coffee history nerd, I was fascinated to learn that the Santa Marta Sierra Nevada region is actually the first coffee-growing area in Colombia. Although most of the country’s coffee now comes from the south, this northern region has been steadily expanding production for decades.

There is even an old tale that centuries ago a monastery gave coffee seedlings to those who came to confession, leading locals to say that the coffee of Santa Marta is built upon the sins of its people. That is coffee lore at its finest.