MARIO CHAMA
“My father liked to produce coffee, I liked his process and that is why, like father, like son”
My name is Mario Chama García, I was born in 1965, what I like to do, first of all, is my work with coffee, I like to know as much as I can about coffee. On Sundays I like to play soccer, spend time with my family and go for a walk with them; that is what I do outside of my work.
I am the son of farmers, when I was a child they used to take me to pick coffee. I grew up knowing a little bit about the countryside, but it is not like now, because before, the work in the field was different. In the past, I had to go around with the hoe and the machete; weeding the farms, pruning them, fertilizing them, all that I had to do before I was able to get to the coffee processing part. When I was older, I went to work as a bricklayer, because in the field I did not earn well, I was poorly paid. But I didn’t like it, and I had the opportunity to enter the in a coffee mill as a loader. I started as a maneuverer, but I saw the processes and I liked them and from the moment I entered I asked a lot about them. I was a loader for a while, then they gave me the opportunity to enter to the processing part, and that was when I started learning. Now I have been working in the coffee industry for 24 years. I started loading the coffee and from there I started gradually learning the processes little by little until I learned how to handle all the machinery that is used for the coffee process, here in the dry mill, later with the cuppers or graders, the same thing, I started asking questions, and they teach me the little I know, until I became, as I am now, responsible for this company. I was given the opportunity and the trust, thank God, and I feel that trust that they have given me has served me well, because I can’t say that I know everything, I still have a lot of things to learn, but the most basic things about coffee, its process and so on, I already know.
I feel that if I do my work with love, with harmony; a job well done, I am sure that the consumer will notice it, because if I do something that I do not like and I do it just because is work, it does not look and feel good. What I try to do is to do things well and to make the coffee as good as possible, so that the consumer has a good cup of coffee at the end.
