Colombia, Buena Vista

Bored of Colombian coffees = bored of life, I say. At the risk of overdoing it with praise for an origin country that continuously impresses and is incessant in the way it progresses it’s processes, you just have to BLOODY LOVE COLOMBIA! This entry from the high altitude Nariño region is Ribena for adults, basically. A super fruity boi backed up with a cacao base.

And of course, as we all know our Spanish by now “Buena Vista”, loosely translated means “get summa this right in ye!”

Flavour notes of: Boozy, red fruits with notes of plum, raisin and cacao.

Nariño is located in the far south-west of Colombia bordering Ecuador and is in general one of the most challenging, but also most interesting places to work. There is extremely high elevation, coffee up to 2200 meters, very steep hillsides, and mainly super tiny farms in very remote areas. We work alongside exporters that have coffee programs targeting certain areas, groups, or producers investing in quality production. In opposite to other regions in Colombia, in Nariño they can have extremely dry conditions during the harvest time, and humidity in the area can be low. This together with really high altitudes definitely affects the flavour profiles and makes them different from any other Colombian coffee.

For the smallholders in regions like Narino, the coffees are commonly sun-dried in parabolic dryers that almost work as greenhouses. The better producers have well-ventilated facilities. There are many different variations and constructions, but generally, they are all systems that are able to protect the coffee from rain. We have generally seen that the producers that have constructions with good ventilation and manage to dry the coffee down to below 11% in 10 – 18 days often have very good and consistent coffees.