ELIZABETH COLORADO

My name is María Elizabeth Colorado Hernández. My family is native to this area. My husband is Benito Hernández Medina, and I have three children: Naum is nine years old, Katia is seven and Alexia is about to turn three. I am 31 years old. I was born in Totutla, but I have lived here my entire life.

My father instilled in us a love for coffee. In fact, he was one of the first members to start growing coffee in the cooperative here in Rincón Toningo. He guided us and instilled in us that love, that desire to work and get ahead. I remember when I was little, he would take us to the ravine to plant coffee. He had plantations of different varieties, he had a coffee nursery, and he would take us to fill bags with soil, for example.

All the activities of my childhood had to do with coffee, and we worked on it all year round. These are very fond memories. My father passed away about 22 years ago, and that was really the legacy he left us. My husband and I talk about it, and I believe that the best legacy we can leave our children is a love for coffee and the farm, because we don’t just dedicate ourselves to coffee, but we also try to have fruit trees in our coffee plantation so that we don’t depend solely on coffee, but also on other trees and fruits, and we can trade with neighbors and family. For example, I just sold pumpkins that we planted, as well as oranges.

Our goal in working with coffee is to continue learning each year and implementing more strategies. My husband and I have been working with parchment coffee for three years. We are learning. We have been in the “field school” for five years because before we started, we decided to study a little and get technical guidance. When we began to see the change, we became convinced that our coffee had a lot to offer. That was five years ago. We improved the soil and the plants, and after two years we decided to work with parchment, because our colleagues in the cooperative encouraged us not to sell it as cherries, as that is like giving your coffee away. That is why we want to continue learning so that we can prepare good quality coffee that people can enjoy when they drink it.

We have many dreams, and God willing, we will be able to continue working with coffee and improve its score.