Colombia, Villa Vista

Producer: Gerardo Atehortua
Village: La Paz
Variety: Castillo
Process: Natural
Altitude: 1280 MASL
Tasting Notes:
Red Plum, Dark Honey, Red Apple, Molasses

THE PROFILE
Don Gerardo is 54 years old and in love with coffee production. For him and his family, the crops have become their  main sustenance. Don Gerardo has been working with coffee for 30 years and thanks to a subsidy from the Government, he was able to buy his farm, Bella Vista. Now he has 28,000 coffee trees of between 2 and 6 years old, planted in a 6 hectares area.

The whole family is involved in farm duties. While his wife and daughters take care of the house, the boys are responsible for the hand-picking. During harvest season, they hire 5 extra workers from the village to help with the extra work.

The Process
Natural Process begins with a pre-fermentation stage of 24 hours at the receiving station. From here, the cherries will be moved to the drying stage; coffee will be placed in African-style raised beds for over 25 days and will be racked and rotated every 4 hours. Due to the levels of sugar and moisture, the first days will be crucial to avoid microbial activity prolongation. Finally, parchment coffee will pass through our dry milling and hand sorting stage.

Delagua Neighbors
Our coffees are the result of a collaboration between our team and local coffee growers that inhabit our region. By adopting the Neighbors & Crops relationship coffee model from La Palma & El Tucan, we have been able to challenge the status quo and positively impact traditional coffee farmers at La Sierra Nevada.