Why I Created Particular Coffee Courses

The Moment It Clicked

I've been managing specialty coffee farms in Caicedonia, Colombia for over 20 years. In that time, I've made every mistake you can imagine — wrong varieties for the wrong altitude, fertilization programs that looked good on paper but failed in the field, processing experiments that ruined entire lots. I've also had moments of real clarity: a Geisha lot scoring 89.25 SCA, a natural Bourbon that a buyer in Dubai called the best coffee he'd ever tasted, a fermentation protocol with levaduras that changed how I think about processing entirely.

For most of that time, I kept this knowledge inside the operation. It lived in spreadsheets, in WhatsApp messages to my field team, in mental models I'd built through years of trial and error.

Then one day, a young producer from Huila visited the farm. He asked questions I recognized — the same questions I'd been asking 15 years ago. And I realized: the information gap in specialty coffee isn't about access to varieties or equipment. It's about access to experience.

What I Noticed in the Industry

Most coffee education comes from roasters, baristas, or marketing companies. They teach you about flavor notes and brewing ratios — the last mile of the coffee chain. But they rarely teach what happens in the first 10,000 miles: how a soil analysis translates into a fertilization plan, why your Castillo lot tastes different from your Caturra, how fermentation temperature affects acidity, or why your conversion factor matters more than your cupping score for profitability.

I wanted to create something different. Not a course about coffee, but a course from coffee — taught by the person who wakes up at 5am to check if the levadura activation is right, who argues with the mayordomo about herbicide timing, who stares at phenology charts trying to predict when the next harvest window opens.

What the Courses Cover

I built three tiers, because people enter coffee at different levels:

The Free Course (From Seed to Cup) is for anyone curious. Eight modules that walk you through the entire journey — from nursery to your morning cup. No jargon, no fluff. Just what actually happens on a working farm.

The Academy is for people who are serious — producers managing their own operations, buyers who want to understand what they're sourcing, professionals building careers in specialty coffee. Twelve modules covering variety selection, soils and fertilization, fermentation science, export logistics, and farm data systems. Real numbers, real decisions, real outcomes.

The Farm Visit is for those who want the full experience — walking the fields, cupping with our team, seeing the processing in person. It's a full day in Caicedonia that changes how you think about coffee.

Why Transparency Matters

I believe producers should tell their own story. Not through brokers. Not through marketers. From the source.

When I share our cupping data, I share the bad scores too. When I teach about pest control, I tell you about the season we lost 7.7% to broca because we fumigated too late. When I explain farm economics, I show you real cost structures — not theoretical models.

This is what I mean by teaching from the source. It's not polished. It's not always pretty. But it's real.

What I Hope You Take Away

Whether you join the free course or visit the farm, my goal is the same: I want you to see coffee differently. Not as a product, but as a process. Not as a commodity, but as a craft. And I want you to understand that behind every bag of specialty coffee, there are thousands of decisions — small, quiet, unglamorous decisions — that determine whether that coffee is exceptional or just good enough.

That's what I teach. That's why I created these courses.

---

Ready to start? Join the free community — no credit card, no commitment. Just coffee education from the producers who grow it.