This is the coffee that we discovered during our roundtrip in Colombia in 2007. When Mr. Alvaro Diaz heard that we were in his area cup tasting coffees, he instantly got on his motorbike and drove for 3 hours in order to let us taste his coffee. It was well worth the effort because Alvaro’s coffee was one of the best coffees we tasted on that trip to Colombia. When we came home and compared his sample with all the other samples by blind tasting we had collected in Colombia, the coffe of Mr. Alvaro turned out to be the best one.

In September 2008 we were again at the cooperative in Pital, Huila, for another blind tasting of the best coffees from Pital. This was only one day after we (our exporter, Mr. Alejandro Renjifo and Tim Wendelboe) had been jury members of the 2008 Cup of Excellence, so our palates were well calibrated. After tasting the coffees on the table blindly, there was one coffee that stood out and could have easily been in the top 10 of that yoears Cup of Excellence in our opinion. When we revealed which coffee it was, we were very pleased to find that it was Mr. Alvaro Diaz’ coffee from his farm Finca La Lomita.

We went to visit Mr. Alvaro the day after and sat down with him and made an agreement to pay him USD 2,50 per pound (456g) of green coffee for the next 3 years if he is able to supply us with the same or better quality. Our goal is to be able to buy all his coffee for this price, which is over 1 USD above the market price.

We also put down some criterias for paying this premium. Mr. Alvaro must invest in his farm in order to make it better and to improve the quality of his coffee, he needs to pay his workers well and make sure they are treated well and he must invest in the future of his kids and family. We truly believe that if we succeed together with Mr. Alvaro, then we will have a bright future together. He will improve his quality of life and hopefully we can further improve the quality of his coffee and make sure that our customers have access to what we believe is one of the best coffees from Colombia.

Here is a film from Tim W’s visit to Finca la Lomita in 2008:

Coffee details:
Producer: Mr. Alvaro Diaz
Harvest: July 2008
Origin: El Socorro, El Pital, Huila, Colombia.
Growing conditions: 1650 – 1750 m.a.s. Mixed shade from banana trees.  Average temperature 20°C.
Farm size: 10 hectars whereas 7,5 h. for coffee and 2 hectars out of the 7,5 are used for intercropping with coffee and kidney beans.
Botanical variety: Caturra
Processing: Mr. Alvaro picks only the ripe coffee together with his family and a couple of hired freelance pickers. The cherries are pulped every night with a manual aqua pulping mahine that separates the beans from the pulp and skin of the cofefe cherries. He will invest in a new pulping machine with the money we are paying him that reduces the use of fresh water from 25 litres per kilo to 1 litre per kilo of coffee. This reduces the water pollution at his farm. All the water that is used for processing is filtered before it is let out in the nature again. After pulping the beans are mixed with fresh water and left for fermentation for 18 to 30 hours, depending on temperature, until the musilage lets go of the beans. After the fermentation the beans are washed and left to dry on elevated small moveable drying beds that are rain protected by transparent plastic. Alvaro picks out any visual defected beans while they are drying. The leftover pulp is left for composting and is used as firtilizer for the coffee trees.
When the beans are dried, they are packed in burlap and sent to the cooperative for sorting and cleaning. We are currently working with the cooperative in order to make them vacuum pack the green coffee before it is shipped to Norway.

Acidity: Mature and refreshing berry-like acidity.
Mouthfeel: Juicy and soft coffee with great balance. Long, sweet aftertaste remniscent of sugar cane.
Flavour: Complex coffee with floral, fruity and chocolate notes. Notes of red mature forest berries molasses and cane sugar.

We will continue visiting Finca La Lomita in order to work together with Mr. Alvaro and learn more about coffee agronomy. To read more and see some pictures we have allready taken you can visit our flickr stream