Here at Pact, we know only too well how a top-notch cup of coffee can transform your morning. But here’s the thing, a Pact cup of coffee also helps to transform lives. We thought you might like to meet one of our farmers to find out how being the good guy yields the best beans.
Meet Faiber Vega
Our Head of Coffee, Will, first met Faiber Vega (a coffee grower not a Tarantino character) back in 2014 on one of his trips to Huila in Colombia and they hit it off straight away.
Faiber is one of those growers who talk about coffee and farming with such passion that you warm to him instantly. When we asked him what his farm is like he said it was too difficult to put into words because it’s not a place; it’s an experience. We love that.
It’s a family thing
Like many farmers in the Huila region of Colombia, Faiber is a generational farmer. His granny was a coffee farmer and his Dad and his 7 brothers too.
It’s what the Vegas do best.
Now Faiber and his wife Liiiana (yep, exactly, behind every great man) run their own farm, El Cairo, in Huila. Their children and grandchildren all help out with the family business too.
When Will met Faiber
Huila is a region of Colombia that is famous for growing Castillo coffee beans. When picked at their best, they taste of buttery peachy goodness. Yum. But like many growers in the area, Faiber used to sell most of his crop to the local cooperative.
The cooperative has no need for the best speciality beans because they mainly trade in cheaper commodity coffee. The stuff you find in supermarkets. So why would Faiber work hard to cultivate speciality beans when any bean will do? Speciality beans cost more to produce and there is no reward for growing them.
Enter Will.
When Will first visited Faiber’s farm he couldn’t believe his luck. It was love at first taste. Faiber was clearly a talented coffee grower with delicious speciality beans to sell but he needed a buyer. The rest is history as they say. Will knew that Pact customers would love the taste of the buttery peachy beans and so he placed an order there and then. Faiber describes this moment as like winning an award!
How a Pact coffee order changed things at El Cairo HQ
After Will placed that first order, life on the farm began to change quickly. Faiber wanted to pour all his energies into growing even more speciality beans to sell to Pact and he used the extra profits from our first order to make it happen.
The trick to harvesting incredible beans is all in the picking. To motivate his pickers to pick the juiciest red cherries containing the best beans, he decided to pay them more. His strategy worked. Happy workers equal happy beans. Faiber now produces four times the amount of speciality beans and because Pact customers love Finca el Cairo we buy most of them!
Faiber’s vision didn’t stop there. This year he has used the increased profits to build more comfortable digs for his pickers. He’s a real stand-up guy. He said the happiness of his coffee beans and his dream picking-team are what’s important to him. That and working with Pact forever; we couldn’t agree more.
It’s only by collaborating with talented farmers like Faiber that we can consistently bring you top quality, great- tasting brews!
