Carlos Sánchez portrayed Juan Valdez

Juan Valdez

Juan Valdez is a famous fictional character that has appeared in advertisements for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia since 1959, representing the Colombian coffee farmer. The advertisements were designed by the Doyle Dane Bernbach ad agency, with the goal of distinguishing...

 for over thirty years, from 1969 to 2006. He was originally a coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 farmer from Antioquia, Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

. He currently is an artist in Medellín

Medellín

Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...

.

Juan Valdez is a fictional character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 that has appeared in advertisements for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia

Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia

The Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia , often abbreviated Fedecafé, is a non-profit business association, popularly known for its "Juan Valdez" marketing campaign. The federation was founded in 1927 as a business cooperative that promotes the production and exportation of Colombian coffee...

 since 1959, representing the Colombian coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

. He typically appears alongside his mule

Mule

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...

 Conchita, carrying sacks of harvested coffee beans. He has become an icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

for Colombia as well as coffee in general.