The indigenous Kogi people in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia are cultivating coffee in traditional ways informed by spiritual beliefs, and retaining control of every aspect of commercial production and marketing. And, according to a Latin American Herald Tribune article, they are doing all this on lands reclaimed from marijuana and coca production.

"In the world view of the Kogi, Kalache is the spiritual father of trees who sent coffee to their land for some reason, and so they must respect it," is how Latin American Herald Tribune writer Jaime Ortega Carrascal puts it. That reportedly gives rise to a radically different set of cultivation techniques than what is used in the rest of Colombia, minimally altering the coffee beans and eschewing the use of chemicals in all stages of the process. According to Carrascal, the Kogi produce around 300 tons per harvest, "of which 20 percent is in the form of toasted green pergamino coffee beans."

The Koji are direct decedents of the Tairona people, a Chibcha speaking civilization renowned for their intricate gold work and centered in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region since at least 1200 B.C. The Tairona's remote location helped them survive the worst of the the Spanish colonial incursions of the 17th and 18th centuries, but the Koji suffered its remoteness in the 1980s when drug dealers seized lands in the area to set up their illegal plantations. Reclamation of those lands by the Kogi began in 2007.

Perhaps the most radical part of the whole endeavor, however, is the fact the Kogi have retained control of the national marketing and exportation as well. According to Carrascal, the Kogi "market their products in 80 outlets in (Colombia's)  four leading department store chains under the brand names Kogi, Teyuna and Gonawindua." But they also export the coffee beans to Europe and the United States. So far, that I can discern, no Kogi coffee is available in Philadelphia, but it is available from selected mail-order specialty coffee purveyors like Epic Coffee (which sells the coffee for $16.00 a pound).