Edilfonso Yara

Edilfonso Yara and Maribel Martinez, owners of Finca la Esperanza and parents of three small girls, have a beautiful family business, different from many others in the coffee industry. They both come from traditional Colombian coffee growing families but after they married, Edilfonso’s father decided to have a complete lifestyle change and moved away from the finca to the local town. Edilfonso decided to buy the land from his father, the land where he had been born and raised. Normally, in the Yara Martinez home, both Edilfonso and Maribel wake up at 5AM and while Maribel is helping their daughters to get ready for school and making breakfast, Edilfonso prepares the materials and tools for the day. After they have eaten breakfast and the girls have left for school, they both go to the coffee plantation to harvest or carry out the daily operations.

Besides coffee, Maribel’s other passion is poetry and she loves to join her passions together by writing poetry dedicated to coffee. She has the most beautiful poem that narrates how they process their coffee with love and passion, to then be delivered and sold. “If you work as a family and look for unity, the environment will be different, and happiness will be found. I want to tell you, my friend, that the love in this house is always constant and that patience will lead the way to wealth.” These are some of stanzas that Maribel writes and proudly recites every time that someone visits. Every day, Edilfonso and Maribel work towards improving the quality of their coffee. Edilfonso only competes with himself, every day he tries to become better.