Colombia Loma Verde by Echavarría Family
Tastes: Sweet, papaya, lengthy finish
Variety: Chiroso
Region: Antioquia
Process: Fully Washed
Altitude: 1,700m
Importer: Mercanta
We were fortunate enough to visit this farm with Mercanta and Pedro Echavarría Jr. (see below) in 2020, when we also cupped the intruiging Chiroso variety for the first time. We're excited to bring this exciting coffee to you!
From Mercanta: Loma Verde is a farm owned by Café de Santa Barbara, a family-owned company dedicated to the production and export of Colombian estate coffee. The family’s beginnings in the coffee business date from the early 20th century when Don Alejandro Angel (great grandfather to the current generation) became the first major exporter of Colombian coffee. Foreseeing the enormous potential for the Colombian crop, in the times when the country’s coffee did not have the reputation that it holds now, he sought to convince the European and American traders that the distinctive qualities of our Arabica coffee made it worthy of recognition and admiration by the coffee roasters of the world. He succeeded beyond his contemporaries’ imagination, opened new markets and became the largest Colombian coffee exporter of his time.
This legacy greatly inspired Pedro Echavarria (husband to one of Don Alejandro’s great granddaughters) who ventured into growing coffee three decades ago. Mr Echavarría understood that the most important step was choosing the region where to grow his coffee.
After much deliberation, he ended up deciding on Santa Barbara, a small county that encroached into the Andean mountains in the state of Antioquia. Other than its picturesque charm, Santa Barbara offered a land with distinctive and crucial qualities, such as microclimates (due to the combination of altitude with warm air from the Cauca River valley), singular volcanic soils, perfect altitude, and a tradition of excellence in the production of coffee.
Mr Echavarria started then with a modest amount of land, but throughout the years he has constantly increased production capacity. By marrying these perfect natural conditions with hard work and efficiency, he quickly grew both the area under cultivation and his farms’ reputation. The Echavarria family began to consolidate the various lands he had purchased over the years during the 1980s.
Today, Santa Barbara Estate is composed of 5 sister farms (including Loma Verde) that lie across three neighbouring, geographical regions: Santa Barbara, Fredonia and Amagá. Loma Verde is the largest of all the farms in the estate. At 75.34 hectares, it accounts for nearly 17% of the Estate’s total production.
In the last five years, Pedro’s son – also Pedro – has become more deeply involved in the workings of the farm, taking the already high quality of the coffee to new heights through experimentation in processing and increased monitoring and control of every stage of production. Pedro Jr. and Santa Barbara’s Coffee Director, Leonardo Henao Triana, manage their wet mill with a blend of art, industrial rigour and scientific curiosity. They are committed to further developing the Estate’s capacity for the highest quality coffee possible and have even brought their offerings to Medellin, Colombia through their flagship coffee shop, Pergamino.
Santa Barbara began working with Mercanta in 2011. In addition to supplying us with various astounding coffees, such as the ‘La Joyería’ micro-lot, San Pasqual Naturals and Finca Veracruz, Pedro and Leo have made Finca Loma Verde available to us for the first time in 2018.
Around a similar time, Pedro began further experimentation at the estate planting some of the mysterious Chiroso variety. Originally thought to be related to Caturra and Bourbon via the Typica strain, recent research has suggested that this variety is more closely related to an Ethiopian Local Landrace: how it made its way to Antioquia, we’re not quite sure! Loma Verde’s coffee is selectively hand-harvested and then brought up to the highest part of the road using cable cars.
For this lot, after the careful handpicking of the coffee during the harvest, they are delivered to the wet mill. Once they arrive, they are dispersed on raised beds to undergo sorting, removing any lower quality cherries before processing. The cherries are also submerged in a tank of water to remove any floaters – another method of sorting. Next, the cherries are de-pulped, removing the external fruit, and soaked in water. This occurs over a span of three days, with coffee from each day’s harvest added to the tank. The coffee remains here after the final addition for 24 hours to initiate the breakdown of the sticky mucilage. Afterwards, the coffee is washed and spread on raised beds to dry in the open sun with plastic covers until the ideal moisture content is reached. The coffee is then sent to the Pergamino dry mill in Medellín to be hulled and prepared for export.
Santa Bárbara Estate employs 60 people all year round, who on average earn 30% above the minimum wage. Half of these also receive free housing within the farm for themselves and their families. A further 1,200 pickers are hired during the main harvest, comprised mainly of farmers from around the Santa Bárbara Estate who pick coffee to supplement their income. Workers are generally long-term employees and have been with the company for more than 10 years.
The Santa Bárbara Estate also runs an extensive scholarship and financial aid program for worker’s children as well as helping long-standing employees to acquire their piece of land upon retirement.