Colombian Lina Posada, from Café Guayacan, has twice won Best Roasted Coffee in Antioquia, and in 2021, her coffee placed fourth out of 157 contestants in the International Cup of Excellence! This competition is sponsored by the Colombian Association for Coffee Excellence (ASECC) in coordination with the Alliance for Coffee Excellence.
Lina Posada was an architect and photographer from Antioquia who, after the unexpected death of her father, took over the family farm with little experience in the coffee business. Today, not only does her coffee receive awards, but it is now selling globally. Her father’s death created a new life project for her. With the tutoring of teachers from the SENA (Colombian National Training Service) in La Salada, Antioquia, with great effort but without significant resources, Lina Posada and her family have worked their way to producing the finest of coffees.
Beatriz Posada, Lina´s mother, has been a Guayacan coffee producer for more than 50 years and a pioneer in coffee production in Antioquia. Cafe Guayacan, their farm of about ten productive hectares at 1860 meters above sea level, is a magical place of wildlife, fruit trees and coffee plants that grow in the shade of beautiful yellow and pink guayacanes trees.
Cafe Guayacan specializes in specialty varieties and innovative social practices. They are a women-focused farm, and their coffee workers are mostly women between 50 to 70 years old that live close by, particularly in the small village of Barrio Salazar. These people have accompanied the Posada family for more than 40 years. One of Lina’s goals is to perpetuate their opportunity for fair and sustainable work. “Our coffee is collected by female heads of the family who select the best coffee cherries with care and delicacy. The fermentation and washing process is done with responsible water use, and the drying is carried out solely with air and sunlight.”
They have certifications from various organizations, including C.A.F.E Practices (high product quality, economic accountability, social responsibility, and environmental leadership), U.T.Z approach, RAIZ Sustainability, and Rainforest Alliance, which are all a part of the Antioquia Coffee Cluster. When open-air coffee farming was adopted in much of Colombia, the Posada family refused to cut down the shady trees, including a guava forest, a unique feature of the area. They look forward to pursuing their social projects, which have a huge impact on the evolution of the farm that supports local workers.
Their hard work to build unique relationships with their neighbors and workers includes projects like “Los Niños del Café,” day care where single mothers can take their children while working at the farm. Lina is not only a woman coffee grower but, like all at Clarena’s Coffee, she works to empower women.
