Colombia - La Plata Humberto Cortez

La Plata, a history-rich town in Huila, acts as an economic hub for the region. Roads crawl up the steep surrounding slopes from the town center into the coffee growing hills that encircle it. The farms here range from a few thousand trees, to ~15,000 trees over 2-3 acres, almost all owned by individual families. Pergamino, an exporter that will be familiar to those familiar with our coffees, oversees the collection of these lots so they can be washed, fermented, and dried at the regional processing station.

Lots from 3-4 day's worth of harvesting are fermented together, washed, and allowed to dry on raised beds under tarps down to target moisture targets. The extra fermentation time allows for more complexity and sweetness to develop, which comes through as a nice medium bodied, chocolatey-rich, pleasantly acidic roasted coffee.  

Altitude: 1,900 - 2,100 masl

Process: Fully Washed & dried on parabolic and raised beds

Country: Colombia

Region: La Plata, Hulia

Tasting Notes: Honeycrisp Apple, Milk Chocolate, Caramel

 

Whilst Huila is naturally blessed with optimal coffee growing geography, the key to great quality coffees from the La Plata region (such as this lot) are the growers themselves. Coffee farming within the region is overwhelmingly small-scale. Indeed, approximately 80% of producers from the region farm coffee on less than 3 hectares of land. These small farms are tended by individual families with labour only very rarely being contracted out, which leads to more thorough and intensive management practices and great pride in the final product – which is, itself, an extension of the family.

 

In early 2014, members of the large cooperative to which the producers who contributed to this lot belonged realized that their location and passion for coffee farming gave them a special edge when it came to producing high quality coffee. Seeing some of the quality initiatives and micro-lot separation that forward-thinking cooperatives around Colombia were exploring, a small group of about 20 producers broke off from the larger regional cooperative to establish their own organization – named Aprocoagrosh (quite a mouthful).