Coffee has always made me proud of my country, but I did not drink coffee before I embarked on a journey to connect with my origins in Colombia and learn about coffee. Coffee tasted bitter, it left an uncomfortable aftertaste, made my body shake and gave me headaches. I felt so bad about not drinking coffee that, since I am a naturally energetic woman, before founding Colibri Mountain Coffee I used to joke that I did not drink coffee because it had been running in my blood even before I was born.
My relationship with coffee changed when I discovered that coffee could taste naturally sweet, but the world has become accustomed to drinking coffee with cream and sugar because the majority of the coffee served in the retail market is what industry experts call “commercial-grade coffee,” a fancy word to describe over-roasted coffee, burned on purpose to mask imperfections and ensure a consistent, bitter flavor. Coffee can also taste bitter it is finely grinded and left in contact with overly hot water for too long, which leads to high concentrations and “overextraction” – essentially too much coffee in your cup.
For the first 32 years of my life, I felt ashamed and impotent because I disliked coffee. Coffee is a very social beverage and even those that don’t drink coffee turn strangers into friends by inviting them to meet for coffee, so for many years I managed the awkward moment of accepting a cup of coffee by ordering a sweet drink that had some coffee in it, typically cold like a milkshake and always with milk and a ton of sugar. But I later had to cut coffee from my diet to manage my calorie intake.
I like to encourage our customers to try Colibri Mountain Coffee coffee black. Most people are skeptic at first, but seeing the awe in their face, in shock to discover a coffee that tastes good without cream, sugar or artificial sweeteners tells me we are at the star of a revolution. Knowing that we are disrupting the market for the world’s second most consumed beverage after water with our naturally sweet coffee is why I am no longer afraid to admit I did not drink coffee.