My journey from a farmer’s daughter to NYC barista

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Growing up on the island of the Dominican Republic offered tremendous amounts of fun. From beautiful beaches to jungle mountains, a child’s imagination was endless. I spent most of my time outside, and in 2003 my parents, Chad and Krista Wallace, purchased a coffee farm in the mountains of Manabao, now known as Spirit Mountain. My weekends were filled with riding horses, camping, hiking to secret waterfalls, and picking coffee. Spirit Mountain quickly became my favorite place to go to. There was always an amazing community that had the biggest smiles and the biggest hearts I’ll ever come across. As I started to grow in age, my knowledge on the farm started to develop. I started understanding what a coffee farm is, not just a play ground for a child but a business for the outside world to have a taste of the hard work that goes on in the steep mountains of the D.R.

I could see how invested my parents were getting to make sure that Spirit Mountain would be a “one of a kind” farm. They went through extreme times where a bad hurricane would wipe out a batch of our coffee plants or falling ill under the extreme case of “roya”, a rust that eats away the leaves and therefore the plant cannot produce fruit. Being an organic farm, it was harder to battle these natural causes. Being just on the sidelines during this farming process, I started to get more intrigued about coffee in general. I moved to NYC when I was 18 years old and one of my first jobs was being a barista. I quickly learned the flow of being behind the bar and making latte art. I have ventured off to gain more knowledge on the coffee world and have attended the NYC Coffee Fest, Baltimore Coffee Fest, and the Denver Coffee Fest in the past 2 years. My curiosity for coffee grows on a daily basis, getting to witness different kinds of farming methods to brewing methods. Spirit Mountain continues to hold its high reputation for quality coffee and educating those who are curious about the process from the inside out.