While we are waiting

When I was in Colombia a couple of weeks ago, I visited Cooccentral, the cooperative where we found the Finca La Lomita coffee last year. I arrived there on the sunday night after being a cupping juror in the 2008 Colombia the Cup of Excellence, so my palate was pretty calibrated and fine tuned to detect excellent coffees. We were presented 6 coffees on the table and we tasted them blindly. In other words, I did not know which coffees we were tasting. After a 30 minute quiet cupping, we all agreed that one of the coffees on the table were outstanding and of very high quality. I described it as extremely sweet like sugar cane, fruity and floral aromas and flavours and a very nice balance. I scored it 89 points out of 100, using the Cup of Excellence format. When we revealed the grower of the coffee, it turned out to be my friend Mr. Alvaro Diaz of Finca La Lomita. Once again he had surprized me with his excellent coffee. Since one of my reasons for going to Colombia was to visit Mr. Alvaro Diaz, I was extra happy to be able to tell him when I met him the day after that his coffee was tasting great. We have now agreed upon working together in order to improve his coffee and of course his quality of life even more. Therefore we have agreed that we will buy his coffee for a premium price of USD 2,50 per pound (456grams) for the next 3 years, if he is able to deliver good quality. This is far above market price which in Colombia as of today is about USD 1,50 per pound for his quality of coffee. For Mr. Alvaro it means an extra dollar per pound straight in his pocket. In return for getting better payed, Mr. Alvaro will invest in better equipment on his farm and also do a lot of changes in order to improve quality of the coffee, reduce his impact on nature and also improving the life of his family. If you want to read and learn more about the project, we have uploaded a lot of pictures and text on our Flickr account.