In 2006 João Hamilton and his brother Ivan dos Santos from the Sitio Canaã farm established a collaboration with Marcos Croce from Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (FAF) to work together on a sustainable method for producing coffee.

This program sets the focus on achieving the highest quality while simultaneously respecting nature and people. Today Sitio Canaã is a leading producer of top-quality coffee in Brazil. We are honored to have had the opportunity to work with this team for the past 9 years and consider them our Brazilian family.

Sitio Canaa Red Catuai

We are a coffee roastery and cake bakery located in Berlin, Germany. Relax and enjoy the atmosphere of our roastery and cake baking cafe while sipping a cup of coffee, freshly roasted and brewed in-house, accompanied by your choice of our fine baked products.

Five Elephant Roastery

Daimes Polanía Tovar is one of five siblings—three men and two women—who were raised among their parent’s coffee trees in the municipality of Palermo, in the northern part of the department of Huila. Out of the five, he is the only one who has carried on the family tradition of coffee cultivation, while his brothers have pursued careers in medicine and engineering, respectively.

Daimes has been producing coffee on Finca Dos Quebradas for the last ten years. His house sits at 1,800 m.a.s.l while the highest part of his cafetal, is located at 1,950 m.a.s.l. The farm has a total surface area of eight and a half hectares, with four of those planted with three varieties of coffee. He has approximately 6,000 Castillo trees, and a little over 3,000 Colombia and Caturra trees. He prefers Castillo because of its high yield and strong resistance to coffee-leaf rust. Besides coffee, Don Daimes also grows plantain, yucca, and avocado, which he uses to feed his family and his workers. Two years-ago he planted 2,000 Tahiti lemon— also known as Persian lime—trees and is excited about the future commercial possibilities of this crop as it is a staple of the Colombian pantry.

The vereda (or township) of San Pedro Alto is steadily becoming well-known for its specialty coffee. The climate in this more mountainous part of Palermo, is “optimal” for coffee production, says Daimes. The annual rainfall is “super” and there are naturally-occurring springs “everywhere”, which means coffee farmers must be extra careful with the runoff waste produced by the post-collection processing of their coffee cherries. The soil in this region is rich, albeit acidic due to its proximity to marble and limestone mines. Finca Dos Quebradas is also home to clay soil, found mostly in the various plots of protected forest on the property. We have fortunately heard from several producers in Palermo that, because of its micro-climate and mountainous terrain, the dreaded phenomenon of El Niño has yet to affect the area in the devastating manner in which has hit the southern part of Huila.

The Castillo and Colombia cherries that went into this microlot were harvested carefully by hand by Daimes’s five pickers, all of whom are either transplants from the department of Antioquia or from southern Huila. After
the fruit is brought in, it remains intact, inside a hopper, till the next day. Around twelve hours later, at six am, the cherries are put through an Ecomill, which is a kind of mechanic de-mucilager. Another 24-hour period of
dry fermentation takes place afterwards. The beans are then washed thoroughly and put out to dry, first on raised beds for ten to twelve days, and then later finished in a Guardiola, or mechanical dryer, for an addi-
tional 28 to 30 hours.

The name of Daimes Polanía Tovar’s finca translates to “two springs”. He says that these waters once held gold and he feels fortunate to have found this property with its golden waters because, before, when he lived in the lowlands, he wasn’t getting any of his coffee into Cadefihuila’s (our allied cooperative in Huila) microlot program. This lot is the first they have accepted and he is rightly proud. We thank him for his hard work and determination.

Dos Quebradas

Consacá is a municipality in the Nariño region, one of the main coffee-growing regions of Colombia, located in the country's deep south. The region's proximity to the equator provides it with the ability to grow coffee at exceptionally high altitudes, with many farms located at more than 2.000 meters above sea level.

Due to Consacà's location, in the vicinity of the Galeras Volcano, the soil in the area is highly fertile and nutrient-rich. Coffees from the area are well known for having high acidity, medium body and a good balance of flavors. This particular coffee fits this description perfectly.

This regional blend is comprised of several Colombia, Castillo, and Caturra harvests produced by various smallholder farmers, who were each paid a premium for their lots. After being fermented and washed, the coffee was dried on parabolic dryers for 20 days, enjoying some of the best drying conditions in the country due to the high altitude.

Consaca

We’ve searched long and hard for these beans that will have you shouting, “I can’t believe it’s decaf!” Breaking the norm and picked prior to decaffeination, this coffee is processed using the highest quality water and E.A. (Ethyl Acetate, a natural solvent derived from fermented sugar or molasses products) products available. The resulting coffee is not only decaffeinated, to be enjoyed any time of day (or night), but is full of sweetness and just delicious with no trace of that distinctive “decaf ickiness.”

Decaf - Omni

Dionicio Gómez has two fincas in the municipality of Chachagüí, in the vereda (or township) of Casabuy, in the southwestern department of Nariño, where he cultivates five varieties of coffee. Separated by a dirt road and then a trail that takes 30 minutes to walk, Finca El Guayabo is the higher lot and Finca La Cocha, the lower lot. The latter is located on the banks of the Rio Bermudez. Don Dionicio lives at La Cocha—cocha being the Quechua word for “body of water”—where he has planted Castillo, Caturra, Colombia, Typica and Maragogype. At 1,900 m.a.s.l, sits El Guayabo, where Dionicio has 2,500 Castillo trees. When the harvest gets going, the cherries are brought down from El Guayabo, post-selection, on horseback. Don Dionicio takes pride in his work. During our last visit, he told us he had never had a coffee rejected by the local CafeOccidente cooperative, our ally and partner, whose offices, and SCA- certified cupping laboratory, are located in the departmental capital of Pasto—approximately a 40-minute drive from Chachagüí.

When asked about his post-collection processing—known in Colombia as el beneficio—Dionicio responded by informing us that “toco inventarlo”—he had to invent it, using trial and error. After his seven pickers—whom he hires back every year for their expertise in careful, hand-selection of the coffee cherries—bring in the days harvest, the cherries are de-pulped, and fermented in the traditional manner for a period of 18 hours. The beans are then thoroughly washed, and put out to dry on raised beds for six days. The resulting coffee has notes of dark chocolate, coconut brittle, and lemon.

We are grateful to be able to work with producing partners such as Don Dionicio Gómez not only because of his hard work and determination, but also because of his proud, innovative spirit.

La Cocha

The coffee we've purchased this year from the Duromina Cooperative is a wonderful example of how investment in better coffee cultivation can produce significant benefits to some communities. Operating in a region that for years was considered the source of Ethiopia's least appealing coffees, the Duromina Cooperative is comprised of various local farmers who wanted to "improve their lives" (the meaning Duromina in the local Oroma language).

Teaming up with TechnoServe, an NGO focused on supporting local businesses in Africa, the members of the Cooperative were able to secure loans and financing, which they've used to build a washing and processing station. Building on the region's ideal climate conditions, they were able to produce this fantastic, florally filter, that's certified Organic to boot.

With the premiums they were offered for their lots, the members of the Cooperative were able to pay back their loans in just one year, and also build a bridge over the local river, allowing easier access to health care services to their entire community.

Five Elephant Roastery

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Five Elephant Roastery

🇩🇪 Germany

Served in Coffee Shops

Coffee Roasts

Consaca

Decaf - Omni

Dos Quebradas

Duromina Organic

La Cocha

Sitio Canaa Red Catuai

Sitio Canaã (Red Catuai)

New Coffee Review