Specialty Coffee Colombia Guayabos Washed

This coffee comes from 35 small producers in the Ortega area, in Tolima, who are part of an association called Cafe Agrario.

Cafe Agrario has had to face several difficulties, both due to its location in a region affected by the civil war and because of poor internal management and coffee sold on credit to buyers who never paid for the delivered goods. The Association was founded in 2014, but it was only in 2017 that the members realised that, precisely because of the terrible leadership of the time, the entity had never been officially registered.

In more recent years, the group has focused on specialty coffee to add greater value to its product, also beginning to roast and sell the coffee locally. Siruma, the export partner for specialty coffee in Colombia, has invested in this community: their agronomist, Pilar, has held training workshops focused both on coffee processing methods and on how to structure and organise the Association itself (a need that clearly emerged from the analysis of the initial data). The producers were also taught how to cup (the technical tasting), to allow them to fully understand the quality of their own coffee.

The association's goal is to keep making progress and to manage to have its own warehouse and a dedicated purchasing point for its members. This would allow them to deliver the coffee directly to Siruma, achieving greater vertical integration of the supply chain and stronger control. They have just delivered their first coffees independently to Siruma, which represents a milestone in their growth journey.

The association has been certified organic since 2020 and independently produces an organic fertiliser that it distributes among the various producers. It has also invested in training for better wastewater management, in order to protect the surrounding environment.

During the harvest, the coffee is pulped every 20 days and the pickers receive a financial premium for selecting only ripe cherries. Once harvested and brought to the mill, the coffee is pulped and left to ferment for 24 hours in tiled tanks. The coffee is then washed 3 times and transferred to African beds for drying.