Sagastume

The Sagastume family have been involved in coffee in Santa Barbara for over a century, long before the recent recognition of the potential of the area. Pedro Sagastume’s father was allocated almost 80 hectares from state-owned lands in 1908, near the village of El Zapote. This land had to be split between Pedro and his 9 siblings on his father’s death, but Pedro’s hard work over the years has expanded his land, earning his place in the speciality coffee market through tireless research and savvy investment. Pedro is the head of the family, and as he grows older, he has begun to split the family’s land between his sons Yeltsin, Yerin and Heyvis. Coffee production is still a family effort; all of the picked cherry is still processed at the wet mill next to the family home.

We have visited the Sagastumes several times now, touring each of their pockets of land, and observing their work in processing, some of the most organised and professional we see each year in Santa Barbara. The Sagastumes’ also have a small production of honey, a small side project enabled by the healthy bee population on the farms, a testament to their careful approach to farming, with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides used.