Colombia Cafe Granja La Esperanza

Beginning in 1930, Israel Correa and Carmen Rosa Vega arrived in Valle del Cauca seeking unoccupied land to start a farm, acquiring Potosi. Over the upcoming years, there weren’t major changes in their way of life, besides of raising a big family which was the Colombian tradition in those days. Following this and the lack of labor, the children had to help by doing farm work. In 1945, three different varieties were introduced to the existing Typica; Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourbon and Caturra.

Two of the eleven children, Rigoberto and Luis, showed special interest in coffee production and processing. They decided to give their crop a new direction, changing to organic in the late 90’s. Besides Potosí, another farm in the Trujillo region was acquired to enlarge the organic production, La Esperanza farm. In 2007 Don Rigoberto had the chance to lease and manage a coffee farm in the region of Boquete in Panama, called “La Carleida”, and a year later obtained first place in the “Best coffee of Panama”. At this point he decided to bring some of the Geisha seeds to Colombia, starting a new era in the history of Granja La Esperanza.

Five farms now make up the Café Granja La Esperanza: Cerro Azul, Las Margaritas, La Esperanza, Potosi and Hawaii. With a reputation for producing competition winning coffees, processes are matched with varieties to produce unique flavour profiles.

La Esperanza farm is situated in the Trujillo municipality and is the second largest of the 5 farms at 34.3 hectares cropping. This equates to just over 96,500 trees. Often seen in pictures due to the picturesque U shaped house surrounding a courtyard, it produces 11 lots that make up the full offerings from CGLE.

Being a larger farm, there is the volume to make up a more accessible crop for those looking for a great quality Colombian to partner with a competition offering.

This coffee contains one of the newer varietals that have come from these producers, Mandela. This is a self pollinated selection from Caturra x Caturra, choosing a bean that gave the best characteristics. This was then crossed with the Timor Hybrid in order to provide some resistance to rust, before being crossed again with Ethiopian landrace varietals such as Sudan Rume, Daleco, and Villa Sarchi. The offspring from those were then selected for the best performing and the varietal stabilised, with the resultant trees exhibiting both bronze and green tips.