La Virgen

Guadalupe is a small municipality of Huila, located along the skirts of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia. Since the beginning of the town, there has been a very strong catholic influence, with the presence of priests and devoted people who shaped the history of the town. On December 12, 1715, Francisca Salazar, the daughter of a very wealthy Spanish landowner called Francisco de Salazar, donated three hectares of her big hacienda to erect a town that honored the Virgin of Guadalupe, which she worshipped. In this territory, they built an important church in honor of the Guadalupe Virgin and started building a group of houses around the church that would soon become the town of La Viciosa. Tragically, a huge earthquake struck in 1827 and destroyed the town. A year later, the town was rebuilt and renamed “Guadalupe.”

Today, the people from Guadalupe make their living by working in cattle, river fishing, and producing agricultural products such as corn, beans, citric fruits, and coffee, being one of its most important sources of income. Coffee is grown in the highlands that surround Guadalupe. The weather in Guadalupe is very fresh, farms are in ideal elevations, and the soil is very rich in organic material. Caravela started working with coffee growers from Guadalupe back in 2013. At that time, coffee growers would travel to our purchasing station in Pitalito to deliver their coffee. However, a few years later, we decided to establish a purchasing station in the town to be located closer to these coffee producers. Here, we have a quality analyst in charge of recei-ving each individual lot and a PECA technician, in charge of working hand-in-hand with each coffee producer to achieve better quality and more sustainability. In this purchasing station, we mainly receive coffee coming from the highlands of Guadalupe and Suaza.