Colombian Harvest

Good news.  Good news indeed.  Yesterday the FedEx man delivered a big, beat-up box.  I asked him what it was (because I was concerned that whatever was inside had been pulverized), and he told me it is from Colombia.  

The first coffee from the trip to Colombia has arrived!  

It's the micro-lot (so small it might even be considered a nano-lot) from Rafael Herrera.  When we cupped this coffee in Medellin, it was sweet, fruity and delicious.  The entire lot, which is much different than his usual coffee, is only 54 pounds.  54 pounds total for the entire lot of coffee.  That's 3 roasts for us.  This is very exciting.  

Soon I'll post more info about Rafael.  We didn't visit him while we were in Concordia, but I'm sure we will next time.

So why is the coffee from this very small lot so much different?  And how does the farmer know?

These farmers know what coffee looks like.  They are beginning to understand what Cristina is looking for, and thus what we are looking for.  She is teaching them the things that usually are considered defects or problems in coffee production (according to the standardization of The Federation) may actually be differences that people in the specialty coffee industry love and will pay more for.

The farmers know when one day's coffee is better than usual.  When the cherries look especially ripe, there were no problems in their little wet mill, the depulper did a good job, fermentation seemed to go just right, and the coffee looked clean and beautiful in parchment.  It's sort of like when I roast, I usually get excited about one or two roasts that seemed to be perfect.  That's based on the way the coffee reacted in the drum, how fast the temp rose, how strong it moved into first crack, what the end of the roast looked like, and a general feeling that it was good.  I guess it just comes from experience, paying attention, and caring about it.  And you can imagine these farmers spend so much time with their trees, they know what side of their farm usually produces better coffee.  They know what weather is ideal during fermentation and drying.  They know what coffee should look like when it is finished in parchment.  And like I was saying at our presentation, they can look at green coffee and tell you whether it has 9% or 12% moisture content (very accurately).  That's amazing.  

So I guess Rafael knew this small amount of coffee was different and special, so he chose to keep it separate from his main crop.  And now we have it.

Like I said, Cristina pays the farmers a differential when the coffee is sold.  And I've asked to double that differential.  Because we really, really want these farmers to succeed in producing great coffee (by our standards) so they don't have to go back to producing great coffee by the standards of the Federation.

I'll be roasting this coffee soon.  But I'll let you know before I do.  You'll for sure want to have some.