The 3rd Miracle is Colombian Coffee – isn’t it wonderful

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3rd Miracle – Colombian Coffee

Isn’t it wonderful?

It was in La Egipciaca, the estate of the hero José Francisco de Rieux, where the first Colombian coffee crop of the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada, today the Republic of Colombia, was planted for commercial purposes. De Rieux fought alongside Antonio Nariño for the independence of this South American country.

The hacienda(big farm), which for many years belonged to the Jesuits, was located  by the Magdalena river and from there, looking west, on clear days, you could see the mountains where the Snow- capped Volcano del Ruiz (Volcan nevado del Ruiz) was, which they called The sleeping lion because history told that at certain times this mountain roared.

The Indigenous of the region where La Egipciaca was locate, showed innumerable rocks that protruded from the surface of the ground, saying that these had been thrown by the snowcapped Volcano, which they respected and worshiped. When the sleeping lion roared, these Indians took refuge in the nearby hills from where it was impossible to make them come down to continue their work.

They say that in 1795, when the first harvest of the new crop was being harvested and after a night of roaring, a roar came from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano accompanied by several tremors that made the ripe grain fall from the bushes.

In the cloud that came out of the mountain after the explosion, the employees of the farm saw an image of a virgin with a child. While the virgin rose to the sky, the stunned mestizos of the Egipciaca saw how the child descended from her arms and slipped to the ground, and then crawled through the canyon of the Lagunilla river that was born in that snowy summit.

Those who harvested coffee in the Egipciaca also noticed the lush green trail left by the boy on his journey through this part of the world. A rain came later to calm the drought of a long summer that was endangering that first Colombian coffee crop in the Viceroyalty.

Apparently, the prayers and offerings that the inhabitants of the region had made with such devotion were attended by heaven.

It was then when a mestizo asked the administrator for permission to go to the snowy summit and give thanks for the miraculous event.

This humble man collected coffee seeds and kept them in his pocket to alleviate the rush of his journey, and his way to the mountain he found the river that was born in the snowcapped volcano itself and through which they had seen the child go down to the plains where the farm was located.

It was the Lagunilla river that flowed into the big Magdalena River located to the south of the Egipciaca. The man rose upstream.

The leafy trail that the cloud had left in the shape of a child and that everyone on the farm had seen was found in the green foliage that the river canyon had on its slopes.

On both sides of the Lagunilla river stood a generous and very productive land where the mestizo went up while looking for the snow-capped summit of Ruiz from where everyone saw the virgin and child emerge in the form of a cloud.

On his first night in those mountains, the mestizo camped on a plain that was about three hundred meters from the rushing waters and while he was roasting some catfish jerky that he brought as food, he prepared a comforting Colombian coffee.

History say that what happened while the drink released its aroma was another miracle, because the smell of sulfur brought by these waters coming from the volcano was replaced by an aroma never felt in these places.

The mestizo, as an offering, planted in that place where he spent the night some seeds of the coffee he was carrying.

And every time he stopped to rest, he drank coffee and sowed seeds from which he brought. Thus, he traveled the entire slope of the Lagunilla river until the news of his pilgrimage was lost at the Mountain of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano where the mighty waters were born.

This was the route of faith, aroma and flavor that the mestizo left on his way while he was searching for the place of the miracle that everyone saw that morning from the Egipciaca farm where the first Colombian coffee crop of the viceroyalty was planted.

The toasted aroma that on these slopes is felt when the Noria (Water wheel) of its clouds moves reminds us of the miraculous arrival of coffee to these lands of North Tolima, Colombia.

This is also the legend that children learn and keep to tell others how that devil’s breath of the volcanic waters of the Lagunilla river had turned into a wonderful coffee fragrance.

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