Description

Growing region: Nariño
Growing Altitude: 1,800 m.a.s.l.
Preparation: Honey processed

Coffee type: Castillo, Colombia,

At La Pradera, Ildel Claudio Muñoz Delgado has been carefully working his farm for over 40 years, farming coffee since he was just 10 years old. Following in the footsteps of his Father, Ildel Claudio learned all he knew working alongside him, and out of his fathers 4 children, he was the only one who was interested in coffee farming.

Whilst the farm is still owned by his mother, at 79 years old she has delegated all responsibility to her son. Now with a family of his own, Ildel Claudio continues to teach the family trade to his own two children who have already started lending a hand at the coffee plantation, ensuring the La Pradera farm will continue to produce the highest quality coffee for years to come.

Ildel Claudio is renowned for his honey processing methods, which continue to produce complex, fruity cups. This is why we are excited to offer this coffee with notes of sweet citrus lime, rich toffee, and aromatic vanilla. Expect a moreish cup with a long lingering aftertaste, a subtle citrus fruit acidity and a balanced body.

Honey process method:

La Pradera has undergone an extended fermentation time, spending 66 hours fermenting in sacks with the cherry still on pushing naturally occurring sugars into the green bean. Once the cherry has been removed, it has been given a further 30 hours in a washed fermentation tank which cleans up the resulting cup to allow for greater clarity in flavour.

We buy this coffee from Portilla’s Cafe which was set up by a Colombian-Irish couple helping their family in Colombia near the Ecuador border to sell their exceptional quality coffees to Europe. Via direct trade the farmers get paid about twice as much, enabling them to earn a living, develop the farm, and keep producing this wonderful coffee for us.

Coffee farmers are facing challenges unimaginable for us in the developed world. The objective of the project is simple, helping the farmers producing high-quality green coffee and secure better options for the farmers to sell their produce.

The farmers conduct ‘Selective Picking’. This is where only the ripe cherries are harvested and are picked individually by hand. The pickers rotate among the trees every 8 to 10 days. They pick the cherries which are at the peak of ripeness. This is a very labor intensive process. At the end of each day, the day’s harvest is transported to the processing plant. The coffee is processed using the ‘wet method’ – using water to separate the seed from the pulp. After the coffee is processed there are two further steps before coffee is ready for exporting. These steps include drying the coffee beans and milling the beans. At both of these steps workers picking out defective beans by hand so only the perfect beans are processed further.