Carlos
When the travel restrictions hit last year due to the pandemic, Carlos, who we had worked with the year prior, found himself in the Netherlands, waiting to travel back to Colombia and process his coffee. Finally back, Carlos was able to produce the lot we’re offering today. Now 20 years old, Carlos is equally as hard-working, disciplined, organized, and mature.
Carlos is a fifth-generation coffee farmer who produces, transports, roasts, cups, and brews his coffee. These are all skills he learned while he worked as the warehouse and lab manager for a youth-producer association that promotes specialty coffee. “Coffee represents my family’s life, my great-grandparents’ lives, it is what has given us everything,” says Carlos.
Since he was 12, he would transport his family’s harvest to town in his father’s truck. Carlos would also drive the truck, which served as a second source of income for his family, shipping produce to different towns in Western Huila. It is most likely for this reason that Carlos skillfully navigates treacherous roads in his trusty Montero with an ear-to-ear grin. “My parents taught me to work early on so I can make something of myself,” says Carlos, who has plans of studying Economics in France.
This micro-lot represents a portion of Carlos’s family farm. In total, they have 55,000 coffee trees composed of Yellow Colombia and Yellow Bourbon varietals. To produce the cup, he used an anaerobic fermentation process which is divided in two stages. First, the coffee cherries were fermented in bags for 24 hours, and second, the de-pulped beans were fermented in the mucilage for 56 hours. The beans were then selected using a washed process, which floated and separated lesser quality beans from the best ones. Finally, the coffee dried on a covered patio for 30 days. When it was fully dry, the parchment was packed in GrainPro bags.
Carlos says, “Our family history helps us produce the quality we have, but also motivates us to improve our quality because it means we are improving our quality of life too.”
Department: Huila
Varietal: Yellow Colombia and Yellow Bourbon
Altitude: 1450 MASL
Process: Washed double fermentation
Shade Trees: Plantain, guamo, and tangerine, orange, and lemon
Other Crops: Plantain and yucca
