Colombia’s culture and history is intertwined with the saga of its coffee. The country is among the world’s best-suited for cultivation – gentle Pacific breezes and temperate climate, equatorial forests and lofty elevations all make coffee trees happy. However, to try and summarize Colombian coffee as a whole would be a fool’s errand; the country is vast and its crop is as diverse as the regions and people who grow it.

Take this organic coffee from Santander department, for example. Aratoca is the name of the municipality in Santander where the coffee was grown. It’s located nearly as far north from Bogotá as Huila is south, and has a reputation as an older, more traditional growing region with a larger ratio of well-established medium estate farms as compared with the more frequently seen smallholder micro-plots in the South. Santander’s coffee tends to be lower in acidity; its warmer climate and further distance inland combined with fewer remaining Caturra plants tend to create a more mellow flavour profile.

While Oscar’s coffee is a little lower in acidity than many Colombian coffees we have roasted, it is anything but mellow. The cup is just bursting with ripe fruit flavors – not the citric notes we find from Narino and Cauca – more like ripe plum and sweet strawberries. An atypical flavour profile for the North, for sure!

Oscar and his family work the 60-year-old, 85 hectare farm, which includes banana, citrus, and sugarcane as well as coffee. His is now the third generation, and his two sons are next in line when the time comes to take over operations in the family business. The farm offers housing for temporary workers, a self-contained water purification system for drinking, irrigation, and processing, and a soccer pitch for down time during harvest. The solar exposure is intense in Santander; as such Hacienda La Pradera is equipped with solar dryers to protect the drying parchment from intense radiation, as well as the occasional afternoon rainshower that’s always a possibility.

Works well as either espresso or filter coffee.

Details:
Arabica Variety: Mainly a blend of Caturra, Tabi & Typica
Harvest Period: September 2019 – December 2019 
Acidity: Low to Medium

On arriving at the La Pradera and Santa Maria farms in Aratoca (in the region of Santander), you will be welcomed by Oscar Daza, who has taken the farm over from his father, José Rosario Daza. Oscar heads a group of eight farms, four of which belong to his family. At 1700m in altitude, all are certified organic and Bird Friendly. He is the first in the region to finance his own organic certification, which is something the local coffee grower’s federation generally pays for. Oscar is an entrepreneur in the true sense, a pioneer and it was this that pushed him to become independent, in order to find his own customers, be free to make his own decisions and manage his production in line with his own vision of coffee growing. His vision is based on his great faith in shade production, and there are no fewer than 15 different tree species. His agroforestry system goes against the local coffee federation’s recommendations, but he stands firmly by it. He is sure that preserving shade coffee production and quality can only improve his coffee. Despite a few difficult years spent battling with the bureaucracy from the local federation, Oscar has finally found his own customers and now sells more than 60% of his production directly for export. We supply this coffee under the name Comuneros, because it can come from all eight of his farms.

Aratoca Communeros

Speciality Coffee Roasters supplying some rare, seasonal and beautiful tasting coffee from around the world, roasted with care in small batches.

Aratoca Communeros

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Aratoca Communeros

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