We are a small family business. We currently live in Prague, but we come from Colombia, where we lived as farmers and grew coffee in the mountains. That is why it is extremely important for us not only the quality of the coffee we sell, but also that we support coffee growers and provide them with fair conditions that we have not had. My name is Ami and this is the story of my family, our coffee farm and the Dorado brand.

When I was little I lived with my grandparents in the small town of Villagómez in central Colombia. My grandmother was a teacher and my grandfather was a dentist, the only one in the county. After school, I spent most days with the other kids swimming in the pond and running up and down the hills. Sometimes I felt like I was running faster than the cars coming down the valley.

At night, my grandfather took me to my great-grandmother Misaelina’s house, where we ate cheese arepas and the adults had a cup of coffee, which they prepared and processed themselves. It was the great-grandmother who opened a farm in 1918 and started growing coffee. My grandparents took over her trade and my parents took over for them. We picked the coffee beans by hand, dried them in the sun, roasted them in a large pan and had to constantly stir them with a wooden spoon so that they all roast evenly. Then we ground the coffee with an iron grinder that belonged to my great-grandmother.

As painful as it was, I left my family and moved to Prague. Here I installed a coffee shop whose mission is to support mountain farmers while providing people with quality coffee.

It is the memories of a happy childhood that drive me. I remember feeling myself drinking coffee, watching myself grow and taking care of it with love, and I want to share it. I would like other people to know where the coffee they drink comes from and learn more about the people who grow it. It was with this idea that Dorado was created: premium coffee from farmers in Colombia and Guatemala.