La Habana Castillo FW

Third-generation coffee producer, Jesus Honorio Solarte Araujo, has more than 60 years experience farming coffee. He inherited part of the Finca La Habana from his parents and enlarged the farm with money from coffee sales.

Jesus began producing specialty coffee in 2019 with support from Commerciacafe. For him, specialty offers better business opportunities that enable him to support his family.

He has 4 children. One child is studying to be an agronomic engineer and another owns a coffee farm. The other two, though they love coffee, have decided to be in other careers and the premiums Jesus receives for his coffee enables them to pursue their dreams.

Since focusing on specialty production, Jesus has invested greater care in harvesting cherry, improved processing with longer fermentation and longer drying time and devoted more attention to detail throughout the process.

Jesus has had soil analysis performed to better inform his fertilization plan. All his coffee is shade grown among native and endemic trees. Shade grown coffee promotes plant biodiversity and create habitats for protecting local wildlife.

Cherry is selectively handpicked and processed on the farm. Cherry is fermented whole for 12 hours to develop fruity flavors and then pulped. Parchment and remaining mucilage is placed in tanks and fermented for an additional 20 hours. Following fermentation, parchment is washed in clean water and then placed in a mechanical drying silo where it dries slowly at temperatures below 40 degrees Celsius.

The Nariño department sits in the far south of Colombia. It borders Ecuador and the high Andean peaks. Its closeness to the equator enables coffee cultivation at very high altitudes. Many farms are located at heights surpassing 2,000 meters above sea level. 

While coffee growing is not traditionally seen at such high altitudes, it is possible in Nariño thanks to plenty of sunlight, dependable and frequent rainfall, and rich soils. Furthermore, the landscape helps ensure nights do not get too cold for growing cherry. The heat that accumulates in the bottom of canyons rises into the mountains at night, protecting cherry from the extreme nighttime cold that comes with such a high altitude.

There are no less than three volcanoes in the Cordillera Occidental, a branch of the Andes mountains in Colombia. These volcanoes reach altitudes as high as 4,700 meters above sea level. While volcanic activity can sometimes present hazards to life and coffee farming, the rich volcanic soil full of nutrients provides an excellent growing medium for coffee plants. The nutrients, combined with lower temperatures helps to slowly form coffee fruits and concentrate their sugars. The result is complex, sweet and acidic coffees.