COLOMBIA blueberry jam ∙ table grapes
Alfonso Guellelo is smallholder, producing excellent coffees in
Colombia, Nariño. This coffee
consisting of Caturra variety only is characterized by the sweetness and complexity usually found in Ethiopian coffees.
W
hile Brazil produces 30-35% of the world’s coffee, it is closely followed by Colombia with about 12%. Colombian coffees are of superior quality due several factors: the country’s high altitude, the quality oriented methods of cherry picking, and the careful management of micro-lots. The interests of local farmers are protected by the well-organized Corporation of Colombian Coffee Growers. There is a definite need for such an organization, as there are more than six hundred thousand small farms at the altitude of 1200-1400 meters, each smaller than 2 hectares. The Andes divide Colombia into regions and have created many unique micro-climates. Nariño is a county in the southern-western part of Colombia, near the border with Ecuador. Growing coffee here is a real challenge. The local farmers work for co-operations on their small, 1-1.5 hectare, hard to reach, steep farms at extreme elevations, sometimes even higher than 2200 metres. Our coffee comes from a new co-operation found in
the town of Buesaco. This co-operation has higher selling prices, but a part of the profit is re-distributed as bonus among the farmers. The owners have invested in the infrastructure and have also introduced quality control measures. As part of these incentives aimed to improve the quality of the coffee, a cupping laboratory was opened last year. Quality conscious farmers like Alfonso are simply drawn to this co-operation as there are regular cuppings organised here, and smaller lots of coffee can be processed and sold separately. The coffee in your hands is 100% Caturra. It was wet-processed after being fermented for 12-16 hours. The beans were later spread onto raised drying beds protected from rain in well-ventilated, parabolic dryers.
Our coffees taste the best when extracted with water of the proper hardness* range. In order to highlight the best flavour of our roasts we recommend having 5 to 10 days of resting period after roasting, but consume within two weeks of opening. Enjoy!
Thanks to the altitude of over 2000 metres and the moderate mean temperatures of the region, the beans ripe at a slower rate, but at the same time store more natural sugars. As a result, the coffee in your cup is sweeter and has a truly rich flavour. * Total hardness: 50 –175 ppm CaCO3 (2.9–9.8 °d), ppm CaCO3 (2.2–4.2 °d), pH: 6.5-8.0.
alkalinity/buffer: 40 –75 (The SCAE Water Chart)
photo by The Nordic Approach
ALFONSO