Colombia: We again leave the comforts of home to bring to our customers the best quality organic Colombian coffees.
This trip to Colombia has three parts for me. Part one: Investigate a potential farm. Finca San Luis. This farm, if the quality is perfect, could find its way into our winter seasonal selection inside Big Truck Espresso Blend. I’ll make the 6 hour drive into Tolima from Bogota tomorrow with our good friends from Virmax, Noble Coffee Roasting, and Mecca Australia.
Part two is Cup of Excellence Colombia. I have the honor to be on the jury for this wonderful event. The Cup of Excellence in Colombia is rather prestigious and I’m still a little confused how little old me happens be on a jury with some of coffee’s biggest legends. Tasting the best coffee grown in Colombia with a bunch of like-minded coffee lovers, (I don’t think it’s going to be a rough week).
Part Three is the most exciting for me. The visit to Finca La Florida. You probably remember Manuael Antonio Ovies and his drop dead delicious coffee. A coffee with some of the oddest flavors, but somehow they all come together like a great dinner party. Baked squash, fig, cranberry, and white wine. Amazing coffee; I’m so happy that I’ll have a chance to meet with the Ovies family and talk about the coffee we have already committed to purchase from them. It is being vaccum packed in Popayan and should be in Olympia by Halloween (wow, that’s so perfect).
Manuel Ovies is a member of the Cooperative Organica and I’ll have a chance to meet other producers in Popayan and talk about some of the trials this year (production is way down and many members have not turned in cherry because of the high C market). It’s unfortunately sometimes just easier to sell your cherry to a “Coyote” for cash on the spot and not have to deal with processing, drying, milling etc. And some might argue that the stress of organic practices is simply not coming back with a high enough differential when the market is so high. So it’s my job to remind these farmers that Olympia Coffee Roasting demands super high quality certified organic coffee with transparent direct purchasing and we are not going away, even if the market goes back to the lows of five years ago.
Oliver