Carlos Guamanga Caturra FW

Born in Cauca, Carlos Guamanga Villaquiran left home at 15 to search for better work opportunities. He worked on coffee farms for a short time in Palestina in Southern Huila before heading onwards. He continued traveling for several years before fate brought him back to coffee in Huila. While working as a coffee picker, he met his wife, Patricia, and began focusing on learning about high-quality coffee.

Carlos studied roasting and cupping skills at SENA (National Learning Service) and has experimented with a variety of post-harvest processing techniques. Today, Carlos and Patricia cultivate 4 coffee varieties on their 4-hectare farm with environmentally-friendly practices.

Carlos and Patricia selectively handpick ripe, red cherry and process it on their farm. They let picked cherry ferment lightly for 24 hours before pulping it. Once pulped, coffee is fermented in tanks for 36 hours before washing parchment in clean water. They lay parchment to sundry, raking it frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 15 days for parchment to dry.

The Huila region is one of the most well-known coffee growing areas of Colombia. The Department of Huila has a population of 1.125 million and is located in the southwest of the country. The capital of the department is Neiva, a city of about 380,000.  

Along with Cauca and Nariño, Huila is one the three departments where the Colombian Massif is located. A massif is a group of mountain ranges and the Colombian Massif, which is known locally as Nudo de Almaguer, provides up to 70% of safe drinking and agricultural water for the Colombian population. 

The Magdalena River, Colombia’s largest river, runs through the region, providing plenty of water for coffee farming and generating (directly and indirectly) up to 86% of Colombia's GDP. The mountain range also features the fertile volcanic soil so typical to the Andean Mountains. 

Caturra, a coffee variety known for its short, compact stature, is a natural mutation of Bourbon. It was first discovered in Minas Gerais, Brazil around 1915. The variety is the result of the mutation in a single gene of the Bourbon variety that made the plant smaller but still high yielding. As it spread, Caturra enabled higher-density coffee cultivation.

As a direct descendant of Bourbon, Caturra is well known for delicate and complex flavors that are often floral and fruity. At the same time, its close relationship with Bourbon means Caturra is very susceptible to coffee leaf rust (CLR) and other common coffee diseases and pests. As a result, Caturra was later bred with CLR-resistant hybrids from Timor-Leste, producing the Catimor and its subsequent varieties.