Colombia Origin Trip: Sourcing Speciality Coffee - Day 5

Welcome to Steve's personal blog from his origin trip to Colombia, where he spent 10 days travelling the country sourcing speciality coffee.

His blog covers his thought and feelings throughout and introduces you to some of the most amazing people/organisations that make up the coffee industry.

Day 5 – Friday 13th May

Good news bad news start to the day today, good news, I managed to sleep until 5am, a new Colombia record, bad news, the farm visit we had planned had to be cancelled due the road being damaged due to the rains.

Silver lining from this is we had a slightly more leisurely start before heading back to Asopep HQ for a coffee cupping. The team had planned an 18 cup session, 11 washed from the area and 7 naturals. This was a happy moment for me, on the washed section, we had;  Pink Bourbon, Tabi, Cattura, Castillo and three Geisha’s. All wonderful cups, clean, balanced, fruity, just amazing to taste and what a place to do it.

I was fascinated listening to the groups tastings notes of the coffees, what an industry to work in. To be surrounded by likeminded people on the other side of the world, terrific.

All the coffees on the table were from the farms associated with Asopep and each one had a unique flavour and all were very good indeed. On the Naturals, there was three that had unusual processing methods; One had used the fermentation water from a batch of geisha and the used this to help ferment  typica varietal. The other two had fermented oranges and then added the liquid extract from this into their fermentation process.

Amazing to hear and taste these innovated techniques and what results they give us. This has been a brilliant morning, I love Colombian coffee and I also love trying new coffees, I got to do them with farmers in Colombia, brilliant.

After such an amazing morning we headed back to the cars and on the long drive back to Neiva, This journey felt a little quicker than on the way here but still bumpy windy roads.

After a good 5 hours or so in the car, we arrived back at our hotel. We didn’t see anything of Neiva as the group is tired but we went to the next door restaurant, had dinner and a few local pints of Cerzeza Artesanals Blanca, really good Colombian craft beer.

Back to the hotel and bed now.

Heading to Inza and Popayan tomorrow… 

Steve Hampshire

Head of Coffee