Ana Restrepo

I first met Ana at a cupping in Cali that was organized by Juan Pablo Argote. Her coffee wasn’t yet at the level I needed, but it stood out from the table for its potential. She told me she had recently returned to take over her parents’ farm and wanted to start investing in quality. That combination inspired me to start working with her.

Her coffee was not specialty grade yet, but I was confident I could find the right customers for it. So I decided to start importing it myself. When it arrived in the Netherlands it got a strong reception, which gave us both the energy to keep going. I made a point of keeping Ana informed about who was using her coffee and what they thought of it. That feedback loop became one of the most valuable parts of our collaboration. Customer responses translated into technical improvements, and those improvements opened the door to quality premiums and investment plans.

In 2019 I visited her farm for the first time. It gave me a clear picture of how she works and showed me that what we do with Argote cannot simply be copied. Every farm has its own challenges, and with Ana we had to find solutions specific to her land and her processes. We started with 200 kilos by air freight. The volumes have since grown to around 2,400 kilos, still imported directly by Shokunin. Part of it I roast myself, part I sell as green coffee to other roasters so Ana can scale her exports further. What began as a small experiment has become one of my proudest direct trade projects.

Today the coffee shows exactly the kind of balance I was hoping for. Where it once leaned heavily on chocolate with just a trace of fruit, it now brings a real mix of red fruit and dark chocolate. A classic Colombian profile, versatile and well-structured. Since 2023 Ana has also been producing a natural, which keeps that base but adds a boozy sweetness on top. A little less clean, but full of character.

Ana Restrepo’s connection to coffee stretches back more than a century. It began when her great-grandparents left Manizales to settle in Sevilla, Valle del Cauca. They were among the first inhabitants of the area and cleared the land to build a farm. What had been dense jungle became the foundation of a family tradition that has been passed down ever since.

Ana is the fourth generation to work that land. Her farm sits at high altitude on the fertile volcanic soils of the Colombian mountains, and she grows her coffee the way her family always has, with the addition of modern techniques she has developed along the way. The result is a coffee that carries the history of the farm while continuing to improve with each harvest.

When Ana and Jelle began working together, there was a clear path for improvement. Coffee was dried on wooden rooftops, the fermentation chamber was worn down, and picking quality varied from lot to lot. Rather than fixing everything at once, the approach has been to identify the most urgent problems each year and tackle those first. A moisture meter to standardise drying, new beds with retractable shelves to better protect against rain and humidity. Step by step, the coffee has gotten better.

Ana’s decision to keep building on her family’s land matters beyond the coffee itself. In a region where avocado and citrus are increasingly replacing coffee, and where younger generations often leave for the cities, she has chosen to stay and invest in coffee instead.