Unconventional entrepreneurial steps.

A story about a friend. 

Village and football field. Road to Huehuetenango. July 1, 2003.

My name is Josué Morales, and I have been working in the specialty coffee industry since 2003. I often tell the story that when I was getting started, I bought my first bag of coffee from Finca Huixoc in Huehuetenango, and that is true, from a certain point of view. 

It is true from the perspective that it was the first bag of coffee I bought with the intention of growing a business. But before buying that bag, there was another one. 

I studied political science in university. It seemed like a good idea back then. Studying that career taught me two specific things about my country, Guatemala. The first, that I needed to learn about economics in order to understand Human Action. Second, that this country was built on the most terrible of historical injustices.

The rest of the lessons are vague at this point, but those two lessons allowed me to see the very different realities we live in this country, and it allowed me to meet people from all walks of life. 

Learning about economics brought me to understand and believe in the foundations of a free society based on private property and the rule of law. My exposure to meeting all sorts of people, particularly in rural Guatemala, led me to understand why the construct of the Western ideas that give frame to modern economics are in conflict when applied to the Mayan reality. 

In my pursuit of understanding this duality I found myself traveling to a village called Santa Cruz Barillas in the northern part of Huehuetenango, which is the roughest and most remote area in the country. 

This town felt like the tropical version of a scene out of the Wild West. A few blocks surrounded a square and a main street. The town and its villages were divided in three main groups. One integrated by people returning from Mexico after the Civil War in Guatemala, second by those who were the former guerilla, and third by those who were former paramilitary. 

Barillas Huehuetenango in the year 2003 was still very raw from a ruptured social fabric after six decades of conflict. The people from the town, maybe six to seven thousand people, were interested in politics and coffee, and of course, football. I decided to be interested in coffee. 

I wanted to bring back to Guatemala City a sack of coffee, and I was told that purchasing at the local cooperative called Asobagri or “the Barilense” would be too complicated, and it would be better if I went to “El Chino” who was “the guy” for coffee in these corner of the woods. 

He wasn’t there at the time, instead I was referred to his brother, who ran the cooperative anyways, but who sold me a bag out of his own production. That timeline is better explained in my article: How I became a coffee producer. 

My first few customers were already asking for some of the coffee from Barillas after handing out my first samples. This coffee appealed to a broader audience by being sweeter, more aromatic and less intense than the higher grown Huehuetenango coffees, and I needed more of it. 

I did eventually catch up with “El Chino” after a series of very bizarre phone calls. We agreed to have a late night meeting in an old neighborhood just north of the historic district of Guatemala City. 

Upon leaving university at around 9pm I called him up to confirm, it would be a very late night meeting at that point. He confirmed, and asked me very mysteriously if I could bring him a couple of cases of beer. After answering I wasn’t sure if I could, he told me that if I didn’t bring the beer, I shouldn’t show up at all. 

I had just enough money in my pocket to buy exactly a couple of cases of beer… as if he knew. A case of beer in Guatemala contains 24 cans.  

There was no cold beer at the gas station where I stopped so I bought the cases at room temperature, it was too late to be drinking on a school night anyways. 

Almost an hour later I rang the bell. He opened a latch on the door and surveyed the surroundings, opened a sliver of the door and upon seeing the cases of beers in my hands he rushed me to get in. 

There was a dimly lit dining room with very hard wooden chairs where we sat down in silence. He pulled out two beers out of one of the cases, snapped them open, placed one in front of me, and the other infront of him. He lit up a cigarette, looked me straight in the eye and asked: “so, what did you want to talk about?”

“I would like to buy coffee from you.” I answered. He just smiled between puffs of smoke and leaned forward towards me and said, “and what are we going to talk about?”

During the hours that passed I learned he had been a member of the guerrillas in Guatemala. He was a mixture between a Bond-Villain and the cool uncle I never had. Full of stories on how he had outsmarted the army and survived during all those years. 

He wanted to get to the root of me. Instigating with questions, trying to find the contradictions, probing to find a reaction, facing me with controversy. I was debating with a well versed and profound Marxist with my precarious knowledge of Mises and Hayek. He wouldn’t even stop at Keynes, it was a full swing to the profound depths of the revolutionary world. 

At the height of his methodology to convert my mind, what he wanted to know is if I could feel the struggle of “the people,” of the masses, of the unprivileged, of the proletariat! I want to believe that the only argument in my favor that night was used against him with his own words. I answered that I do feel and relate to the struggle, but that I could never “be the people” because “the people” have no historic memory. 

There was a silence. We had finished the first case of beer when he made a pause to open another pack of cigarettes. I found it would be the right moment to ask if he would sell me coffee?

He roared in laughter. Already with bloodshot eyes and tipsy. “Of course I will! What are you thinking? Of course I’ll sell you coffee!” He repeated this over and over as he kept on laughing. 

I let out a long exhale in relief. More relaxed, I proceeded to ask: “so, what’s the price?”

He immediately sobered up, sat straight, looked me again straight in the eye and without losing eye contact pulled out and opened another two cans of beer from the second case. He placed one in front of me, and one in front of him and said, “kid, I ain’t that drunk yet.” 

After being sick for a couple of days from drinking a whole case of warm beer, my hands were still shaking when I dialed “El Chino’s” number. 

The coffee was already on its way. Apparently, I had named a number of coffee sacks I had already purchased, most importantly, there was a price by which he swore I had agreed to purchase. 

I had just received my first lesson on high diplomacy and negotiation.

I don’t believe I ever sat down to drink with him ever again, but we did become friends that night. Over the years he would gladly teach me how to maneuver the inner workings of one of the most complicated regions in the coffee world. 

I am very saddened to have learned that “El Chino” passed away this morning from COVID-19. He was buried in a common grave in Quetzaltenango, without a name, just like all his fallen brothers and sisters were buried during the war. 

The bullets couldn’t catch you, but the Corona did. 

So long, my friend… and cheers!