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COLOMBIA Juans were portrayed by actors, the character created by the FNC in order to market Colombian coffee is currently represented by a third-generation farmer named Carlos Castañeda Caballos, who was discovered drinking coffee with his friends in the town square and approached by FNC agents to represent his fellow cafeteros to the world at large alongside that famous donkey, Conchita. Don Caballos doesn't own a donkey, but he does have a couple cows and a very rambunctious new puppy on his 5-hectare farm, along with roughly 13,000 coffee trees, mostly Castillo variety. He, along with his all-smiles wife and two shyly gracious teenage chil- dren, greeted us at Finca Isabela and passed around coffee (sweet- ened with panela, a type of unrefined cane sugar) and cookies while answering our endless questions about the farm, and about the pressures of "being" Juan Valdez. "In my travels I've seen more than 30 countries around the world," Don Caballos says through the interpreter, Diego. "But my heart is happiest in Colombia, my home." Like they say: Awesome. Besides wandering around Juan Valdez's coffee farm (which, by the way, is literally the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my entire life), I was able to see firsthand some of the incredible growth and development of barista culture that Colombia's coffee scene is experiencing—not only at the national competition, which was held during ExpoEspeciales, but also in the cafés both permanent and pop-up, in panel discussions about the future of specialty coffee, and in conversations with caffeine-driven people throughout Antioquia. "Baristas are the local experts," explains FNC marketing and publicity coordinator Marcela Jaramillo Asmar, who took part in a panel focusing on differentiation of origin both within different Colombian coffee-growing departments and in cross-industry com- parisons. "Consumers believe in baristas, and they have the ability to tell the story of coffee to consumers." This principle is clearly visible among the FNC's many barista-for- ward initiatives, which emphasize the empowerment of baristas to act as the gateway to specialty coffee for average Colombians. Like many coffee-growing countries worldwide, Colombia has always had relatively low consumption statistics—and even then, most of what has been historically consumed domestically has been, well, pretty crappy. (Why drink what you can sell, in other words.) Marcela and the FNC strongly believe that education is the key to capturing new consumers, and along with the increased visibility of the national cof- fee championships (more on them in a minute), the Federation and local government agencies within the coffee-producing departments have developed aggressive programs for training, encouraging, and spreading the good word of specialty coffee throughout the country. Sergio Fajardo, the wildly popular current governor of Antioquia (until his administration steps down this December), has made edu- cation his main progressive platform during his tenure as legislator: By using coffee as a platform for learning in various programs like Nueva Generación Cafetera (New Generation of Coffee Producers, NGC)—a nearly weeklong coffee camp for 1,000 young relatives of coffee producers, ages 15 to 25, who are interested in developing skills, building a community, and learning about the opportunities they have with a future in coffee—he has worked toward fulfilling the department's slogan, "Antioquia, la más educada": Antioquia, the most educated. The growing trend among coffee-producing countries is an aging population of growers, as second and third generations leave the fam- ily farms in search of work opportunities in nearby cities or abroad. At one of the coffee-growing department of Antioquia's many Parque Educativos, baristas and passionate new coffee professionals Esteban Espinosa and Maria Paula Pincon discuss the importance of bringing specialty-coffee consumption to the people of Colombia, so that the local population beer understands and appreciates the value of the coffee grown there. 34 barista magazine