About This Coffee
Hacienda El Roble has been in the same family since 1976 and today the fifth-generation coffee producers cultivate coffees on the farm. Hacienda El Roble first began cultivating specialty coffee in 1995 when they saw the interest in coffee from Mesa de los Santos. They decided to focus on specialty and become an export company focused on producing delicious and unique specialty coffees for a global audience.
Cultivation
Coffee is shade-grown with 158 adult shade trees per hectare. Shade trees help create a cooler microclimate that nurtures sweet, dense cherry. Coffee trees are fed through controlled irrigation that ensures all trees receive proper water throughout the year.
Hacienda El Roble has a coffee garden with over 80 different coffee varieties growing there. They pinpointed the best-cupping lots and planted 4,000 trees of each of the top varieties. These microlots are amassing significant interest on a global level. The third phase will involve planting more seedlings of each variety in order to scale up and meet consumption needs.
One of the biggest challenges they face today is climate change and the way it affects productivity levels year on year. A changing climate also impacts what varieties they can grow as spreading diseases like Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) and Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) threaten the varieties most well known for their quality.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Ripe, red cherry is selectively handpicked and processed on the farm. Cherry is floated to remove any underripe cherry and then pulped on the farm’s pulper. Coffee is fermented for 18 to 32 hours and washed in clean water.
This lot is part of a drying method experiment that trials 4 different drying methods: Silo (mechanical), raised bed, patio and solar dryer. This experiment was designed to test the effectiveness of solar drying on quality preservation and scalability compared to other drying methods.
The solar dryer used on this lot is a newer technology designed to dry coffee with the efficiency and control of a mechanical dryer but with the environmental footprint of solar drying methods. Solar power heats the air inside the dryer and helps dry beans more quickly and with more exactness, without relying on electricity.
Coffee in Colombia
Colombia has been producing and exporting coffee renowned for their full body, bright acidity and rich aftertaste, since the early 19th century.
Colombia boasts a wide range of climates and geographic conditions that produce their own unique flavors in coffee. This also means that harvest times can vary quite a bit. In fact, between all its different regions, Colombia produces fresh crop nearly all year round.
The increasing focus on the specialty industry is changing the way traders and farmers do business. It is becoming more common for farmers to isolate the highest quality beans in their lots to market separately. These higher-quality lots are often sold under specific brands or stories.
Besides its wide variety of cup profiles, Colombia has quickly expanded its certification options over the past 10 years. The most common certifications available are Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Organic.