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Ángela and Gabriel agreed with-
out hesitation, but the challenge

became even greater.

The next morning, she picked the coffee berries and up, this and that … Anyway, they couldn’t get much pay-
drove to Pereira for roasting in her pick-up truck. She ment from this, they claimed. It didn’t matter anyway. We
began the new role, a role that would stay with her for the lost our jobs and beans; there wouldn’t be a harvest for
rest of her life and test her special power as a woman. months, and we ran out of money to keep the farm going.
She arrived at the roastery with only the samples When the roasting was done, I took out the
and her unwavering will. The money was long gone. The pre-prepared self-designed bags from the truck to pack
staff received her with some hesitation. They told her that the coffee and prepare to send them to my customers.
the roasting cost was too high, and they couldn’t do it for I cried while packing up. I named them Café J after the
her unless she could offer ninety kilos of coffee beans. farm Gabriel inherited. In that afternoon of 1992, I
But Ángela only brought less than five kilos of the samples. didn’t feel like going back to the farm. My son was right.
She would come back in three days, she replied. The engine In depression, I couldn’t see the light at the end of the
turned on, the truck made a U-turn, and she departed. tunnel. The long, narrow tunnel seemed to further
“Ninety kilos, that’s a lot of risk!” It was the first narrow down as time went on.
response she got from her son, who was used to question- I went to a friend’s coffee shop not far from the city
ing her decisions. But she didn’t want to negotiate this center. The coffee shop was not open yet, but she sensed
time; she didn’t even look at him. She had the only two my predicament and welcomed me. I told her what just
remaining workers and their children joined her – the happened and she didn’t know how to comfort me, she
children were there as the workers lived in the farm with simply asked me to give her some freshly roasted coffee.
their families – to select the best ninety kilos of coffee “We just give it a try. There’s nothing to lose.” With no
beans. It took them three days and three nights. The next confidence, I still took one bag off the truck. She had an
morning, two ninety-kilo bags of samples were loaded old coffee machine, the Victoria Arduino, an espresso
onto the truck, including a bag of the best beans selected machine that made the best coffee in the city. While we
from her latest harvest and a bag of the second best coffee, were grinding the coffee, Pierre Joseph, a Frenchman who
which was to be sent to Ecuador for subsistence purposes. owned the largest and most famous cafe Le Garçon in
Pereira, came in. I met him a few times, but we had never
* talked before. My friend Victoria invited him to taste the
I arrived early at the roastery in the city center of great coffee from Altagracia made with freshly-roasted
Pereira. Two workers helped to unload the coffee beans, beans. I glared at her and even wanted to kill her, prepar-
and I drove away to find a parking space, as there was no ing to be humiliated – we couldn’t even sell this coffee to
way to park in the factory nor the narrow roads of the city customers in Pereira. But Victoria ignored me. She pre-
center. When I came back, I was freaked out – the bag of pared two cups of espresso and handed him one.
selective beans and the other bag with slight flaws were Surprisingly, he ended up asking for one more cup.
mixed together into the roasting machine. I didn’t know He congratulated me and asked me to tell him more stories
whether they just didn’t want to listen to me or I failed to about the farm and the coffee. He asked me whether I
express myself clearly. Sometimes, no matter how much could supply him with coffee every week and he wanted
we raise our voices, the female couldn’t sound as loud as to buy the whole lot. I agreed. When he asked about price,
the male. The three days of painstaking selection went in nerves made me offer a price four times higher than what
vain, along with the ninety kilos of coffee beans and the I thought the beans should be worth. He seemed unfazed
Lucía and Ángela met at school. Living in different places, they had no contact for many
years until coffee brought them together again. Ascafé, an association of women coffee samples to be sent abroad. The workers excused them- and didn’t bargain. We signed a contract right there on a
growers of Pereira, became the bridge between them. selves, saying they thought it was supposed to be mixed napkin – I became a partner of Le Garçon.

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