Colombia Revisited

Revisit Colombia? Well, the fact of the matter is that beyond our Organic Colombian Mesa de los Santos, and Don Telmo Reserva, it has been quite difficult to obtain a better cupping non-organic Colombian on a “consistent” basis. Now it’s not as if we are going to abandon our current Popayan, Medellin, and other programs - although they can vary in quality from very good to just OK, they are priced more competitively and thus will always have a niche in the market. Instead it was our intent to find something special in quality that we can look to deliver on a consistent basis, while rewarding the cooperatives with a better premium than what they are accustomed to. As we traveled to the southern parts of Huila it was amazing to witness how this concept of separating small lots of parchment was still relatively new. For so many years these special “micro-lots” would be blended in with the other parchment delivered to the mill and thus the grower would not realize a better price, nor would he know who purchased his coffee. It was during our visit to the Cafe de Huila cooperative where we witnessed this progressive approach in action. They test each lot that is delivered to the mill and separate the premium lots from the rest of the pack. This was where we discovered the Oporapa & Palestina lots that have just landed here in NY. You can see from the preparation that the beans are sun-dried (in fact all the coffee in southern Huila is sun dried - most can’t afford dryers!). We found these lots to possess a slight citrus start with a lasting caramel finish - You gotta give these a try!

After cupping some great coffees we were introduced to what will surely be the new craze on ESPN – it’s called TEJO. It involves hurling a 2 lb. disc at a clay pit with the objective of landing the disc on triangular explosive charges – it’s kinda like horsehoes on steroids! It was great fun and I can’t wait to start a Staten Island Tejo league, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring these cute little explosive charges on the plane home... maybe horseshoes ain’t so bad after all.

Jaime