About Us
Welcome to Encantado Coffee. We are a small specialty coffee business dedicated to ethically sourcing and offering you the most unique single-origin 100% Colombian coffee. We pay farmers a premium for their coffee to ensure fair labor practices and the continuation of Colombian Coffee Culture and heritage. You can rest assured that when you drink a cup of Encantado Coffee, you are not only indulging in a distinctive sensory experience, you are also supporting small-scale Colombian coffee farmers who are continuing the coffee farming practices of their ancestors.
When we say that we are a small business, we mean it: Encantado Coffee is fully owned and operated by co-founders Sierra Roberts and Camilo Arbeláez. We started Encantado Coffee because we care deeply about Colombian Coffee Culture and its farmers, and we want to make a difference in how these farmers are paid and treated in the coffee industry.
Why Encantado?
Encantado means “Enchanted” in Spanish. We chose this name because Colombia is truly the land of enchantment. The idea of enchantment and magic in Colombia became popular thanks to the literary style of magical realism, which combines everyday life with the magical to tell fantastic stories, like Gabriel García Márquez’s book “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” For us, this magical realism extends far beyond the pages of Colombia’s treasured literature. In the rich cultural heritage of Colombia’s Coffee Cultural Landscape, the magic can be felt in festivals, traditions, and of course, the coffee. We have experienced this enchantment firsthand, and now we want to bring it to you through excellent Colombian coffee!
Our Story:
Both co-founders Camilo and Sierra have spent time living in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, and it is out of this deep connection to the region that we founded Encantado Coffee. Camilo grew up and has spent most of his life in the coffee-growing region of Colombia, namely the cities of Pereira and Medellín. Throughout his childhood, Camilo visited his extended family’s coffee fincas (farms) frequently, learning about his culture and heritage from the elders who helped create it. Camilo is incredibly passionate about the cultural heritage of Colombian music and studied it at the Tecnológico de Artes Débora Arango in Medellín. Camilo also experienced first-hand the problems that coffee farmers face in Colombia: low prices, climate change, and greedy middlemen, to name a few. You can read more about Camilo on our blog here.
Co-founder Sierra also has close ties to the coffee-growing region of Colombia. In 2018, she spent a year in Santa Rosa de Cabal as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student, living with a local family and attending a local high school. While living in this small coffee-growing town, Sierra had the opportunity to meet local coffee farmers and tour their fincas (farms). There, she learned about Colombian culture and language and completely fell in love with coffee. Sierra also learned about the injustices facing coffee farmers in Colombia - most are not paid enough to cover the cost of growing coffee, let alone to pay their workers well and improve their farming practices. Later on, while studying geography at UCLA, Sierra also worked as a barista at several specialty coffee shops. This experience solidified her love for high-quality coffee.
Sierra and Camilo met in Los Angeles in 2022, and in 2023, founded Encantado Coffee. We love coffee and realized that if we want to continue to enjoy excellent Colombian coffee, the industry must change. Colombian coffee farmers are struggling, and without an overhaul of the coffee industry, many will be forced to give up farming, and with it the cultural heritage of their ancestors. We want to positively impact our community in both Colombia and the United States by bridging the gap between small coffee farmers and conscientious coffee lovers to create a revolution in the coffee industry.
Encantado Coffee means putting the farmer first. It means paying farmers fairly, even if that means less profit. It means change for the better. We humbly invite you to join our mission to create a sustainable, ethical coffee industry in Colombia and beyond. Change starts with us, so what are you waiting for? Try our coffee today and experience the enchantment of a more ethical world.