Meet Flor Bonilla Ceciliano

Doña Flor, a smallholder coffee producer from Bustamante, Costa Rica, an inaugural Care Trader and a mother to three children including jacqui, one of our care Fellows.

She’s inherited a small piece of land from her dad and has tended the coffee farm her whole life. Her and Jackie’s love for coffee and community work has them involved with the development projects in their community in Bustamante even during the weekends.
Her youngest daughter, Jackie helps her mom, Flor with the farm work. During the week, she works as an accountant in the city. Despite having to drive every morning over an hour to get to her work in the city, she chooses to live with her mom on a coffee farm for its tranquility. Over the weekend, she works with the community’s development committee and helps her mom on coffee-related projects. She has participated last year in our Care Training program and graduated as a Care Trader.
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This year, she has been an active part of the Care Fellowship to design a project to incentivize and motivate her community to engage with the local cooperative 🌱

We asked her what coffee meant for her.
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“For me, what I do in life, from my memory of being in the middle of a coffee farm—I am picking coffee, getting up early to go to the cafetal [coffee farm], get my hands dirty with the honey of the coffee, getting bitten by a worm or wasp: coffee is my life.
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It is my childhood, what I have accomplished, that I could go to school, to high school, and also to the university. It is what maintains me now because although I work and have a salary the house where I live is maintained thanks to coffee. We eat thanks to coffee; in reality coffee means a lot.
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Personally, its meaning is more than income. It is what I am. I am proud to say that I come from the countryside, that I am from a coffee zone.”
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“Para mi, todo lo que hago en la vida desde que tengo una memoria en medio de un cafetal, voy a coger el café…levantarme temprano para ir al cafetal, ensuciarme las manos con la miel del café, que me pique un gusano y que me piquen avispas pues el café es mi vida.
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Significa mi infancia, lo que logro, que pude ir a la escuela, pude ir al colegio, y también la universidad y también lo que me mantiene ahorita porque a pesar de que yo trabajo y tengo mi salario, la casa donde vivo se mantiene gracias al café. Sea como sea todavía nos alimentamos gracias que el café nos da algo o sea en realidad el café significa mucho.
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Personalmente significa mas que un ingreso. Es lo que soy. Y sea como sea me siento orgullosa decir que soy del campo y que soy de zona cafetalera.”Based on the preshipment samples.

Interview and visual story by Alexa Romano.

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More about Flor’s Coffee:

Name of the mill: Centro Agricola Cantonal de Frailes
Region/Country: Bustamante, Costa Rica
Altitude: 1,100 m above sea level
Coffee Variety: Caturra, Catuai
Process: Semi-washed (mechanically pulped)
Notable Flavor note: Marzipan, nutty, chocolate, note of green tea and spice