Colombia Cafe Granja La Esperanza Cerro Azul Hybrid Washed

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.

Near to the La Esperanza farm in Trujillo lies Cerro Azul. With nearly 34,000 trees producing 7 lots of coffee in the Cafe Granja line up, this farm is notorious for the Geisha it produces. High altitudes, 1500mm rainfall and 85-90% humidity make for a unique microclimate, and 17 hectares of that are the Geisha trees that produce the cherries for this coffee.

Cherries are picked and dry fermented whole before being depulped without water, and then wet fermented for 35 hours giving as total fermentation time of between 54 and 57 hours. Beans are then mechanically dried between 35°C and 45°C until they reach the target 10.5% moisture.