Colombia Cundinamarca Viani

Vianí is a municipality located in Cundinamarca department in a region called Central Magdalena Province given that Magdalena river (which is the principal river of Colombia) runs through this area. The territory used to be occupied by the indigenous tribe “Buitimas” in the pre-Columbian period. It has been said that the name Vianí comes from the language of this tribe meaning “golden summit”.

Vianí enjoys a favourable location because it has all the thermal floors: warm, temperate and cold, which offers great possibilities in terms of agricultural production diversification and of land use in general.

Due to the many microclimates and changing weather patterns, there is often fresh coffee cropping throughout the year, though generally this is split across the main and mitaca (or ‘fly’) crops. Global warming has seen a significant change across Colombia, bringing challenges to some areas and opportunities to others. Earthquakes and landslides have featured in the coffee areas, but the commitment to quality there remains high

Coffee here is collected in 3 stations, but around 70% comes from Mr Joseel, not too far from Quipile, birth place of Racafe. Cherry is brought either processed on the farm or can be brought in wet too if the quality is right, and dried in a guardiola on site. This tends to fall in to the pattern of cherry being picked on a Monday or Tuesday and being depulped by the end of the day, then fermented for 48 hours.

Once a good volume has been collected (between 10,000 and 13,000kg) a truck takes the load to Bogota and the drymill there, where extra sorting and two levels of cupping occur before bagging and export to us. Joseel has been collecting for over 20 years for Racafe, and only sells to them; the truck driver is the only one he uses too, and has been working with them for just as long.