Smell of Coffee: Economy and Coffee Companies in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

Abstract

The article studies the coffee economy of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Serrania de Perijá, as well as the business activities that emerged around this activity, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. The study shows the origins of coffee growing in the Colombian Caribbean, highlighting three haciendas and several pioneers of regional coffee. A considerable part of that colonization started in the late nineteenth century in the Sierra Nevada and Serrania de Perijá, was advanced by foreign businessmen and families, located mostly on the northern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Plantations such as Jirocasaca, La Victoria and Cincinnati are studied in this article with some depth, as well as some pioneers of cultivation such as Pedro Cothinet, Joaquín de Mier, Francois Dangond, Orlando Flye and the Opdenbosch and Weber families. The cases studied in this article are framed within the theoretical postulates of business history and entrepreneurial history, which have their origin in the 1920s in the universities of the United States.
 
Keywords: Coffee, Coffee Businessmen, Coffee plantations, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Serrania de Perijá