La Familia Collective
La Familia del Café
Located in the Antigua Coffee Growing Region
La Familia del Café (La Familia Collective) is made up of two families of coffee farmers spanning two generations. Telma and her husband, Freddy and Freddy’s brother Daniel and his wife María have been processing coffee in San Miguel Escobar since 2005, but growing coffee in their fields for even longer. These two couples are considered pioneer producers in their community. Combining their expertise with their children’ innovation, their families came together at the end of 2021 to launch their own coffee and agritourism initiative named La Familia Collective, in honor of what unites them most. They currently operate as a collective with the goal of forming a legal structure as they continue to expand.
De La Gente began partnering with La Familia Collective in 2021 to accompany their vision of using coffee production to contribute to the economic growth of their family and larger community by generating sources of employment and opportunities for professional development. As a group, they’re guided by their values of gender equity, environmental care, and community development. In efforts to embody the change they hope to see in San Miguel Escobar and the larger coffee industry, they named Estela, the youngest sister of nine siblings and second-generation coffee grower, as the group’s first legal representative. Charging the future under her leadership, they have big goals for being symbols of innovation and progress in their community.
They plan to launch a reforestation program in the region to preserve native trees and combat climate change. Additionally, they seek to organize the community to improve the trails and make parcels of coffee more accessible and transitable. As they continue to grow and incorporate more members, their goal is to construct their own eco-friendly wet mill where they can process coffee at a large scale and in a more environmentally friendly manner as well as open their own coffee shop and promote specialty coffee in the community.
