These Colombia photos document our July buying trip to Nariño, Inzá and Tolima just in time for new October arrivals.
A July buying trip to ColombiaColombian coffee is highly marketed and widely available in the US. They have been largely successful at equating the name Colombian Coffee with "Good" Coffee. This is half-true.... was the first in a few years, and documented in the Colombia photos below. While the trip was centered around the harvest in Nariño, we also took the opportunity to visit some of the buying projects we’ve been a part of in Inzá and Tolima.
One of the highlights was a stop at the farm of Eduard and Jerly Sandoval, FincaSpanish 101: Finca is the Spanish word for farm. Sometimes the term Hacienda is used to imply an Estate, which would mean the farm has its own wet-mill.... Canta Ranas in Santa Helena, Tolima, a source of incredible Chiroso"Chiroso" is the name given to a unique variety of coffee rediscovered in Colombia in the early 2000's, and is still mostly limited to the country. Originally thought... coffees. I was surprised to learn that the area where Eduard’s farm is located isn’t known for coffee, even though altitude (1900 meters), and climate are favorable. In fact, it’s corn and passion fruits that you mostly see. Eduard’s worn many hats in coffee, from quality control, to fermentationFermentation in coffee processing traditionally referred to the stage in wet-processing of the coffee. We now understand that fermentation happens more broadly in nearly all processes, including honey... specialist, and it shows at his well-managed farm, and makeshift coffee lab he’s set up at his home.
In Inzá we sat in on the “payment ceremony” at the association we buy from in San Antonio. Farmers are paid an initial price for their coffee on delivery, and any extra value that is captured based on final quality is paid directly to the farmer at the end of the harvest season. It’s not necessarily a unique arrangement, but differs from terms offered by some of the local buyers who pay cash outright at a lower overall base rate.
We also took a “wrong turn” while hiking above San Antonio to some farms along the ridge. This turned out to be a lucky mistake, as we stumbled on a panela production site along the trail, and production was underway.
We saw lots of old faces during our farm visits, and several exciting new projects underway. You’ll see some of both in the photos below, which are roughly organized in the order of our itinerary.
Scroll to the bottom of the Colombia photos for a look ahead at when to expect some of the coffees from this trip.

































Here are some Colombian coffees from this trip that you can expect in the next two months:
Late October:
- Colombia Inzá Veredas Vecinas
- Colombia Tolima China Alta
November
- Colombia Honey ProcessThe honey process has nothing to do with honey other than the fact that they're both sticky! It's a term that became popularized in Costa Rica as another... Doña Katherine
- Colombia Páez Rio Chiquito
- Colombia Cauca Heirloom Chiroso
- Colombia Las Estrellas de Inzá
- Colombia Tolima Eduard Sandoval Chiroso
- Colombia HoneyIn coffee, honey-like sweetness is often found, but we use terms such as refined honey (highly filtered and processed) as opposed to raw honey rustic honey sweetness. This... Process El Páramo
- Colombia Inzá Cresta El Hato
- Colombia Inzá Vereda San Antonio
2 Responses
Me encanta las compras que hacen del café directamente a nuestros campesinos,son ellos quien se esfuerzan para sacar los mejores cafés ,así que es merecido recibir un pago justo
Gracias!