Colombia Origin Trip: Sourcing Speciality Coffee - Day 6

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 6 – Saturday 14th May

Another early start and another delicious broth for breakfast, the GHL hotel in Neiva was fantastic, very new and very comfy.

A big drive ahead of us and its off towards Cauca, first stop Inza. After a good three and a half hours in the car we arrived and the bustling town of Inza. Saturday is market day and wozers, what a place. The hustle and bustle, the noise, the people, amazing to be part of this. The local community would all come into town and but what they needed, sell what they could and from what I could gather, have a niece cerveza or two after. 

We were greeted in Inza by Jesus, the local coffee buyer. We watched some of the farmers bring the parchment coffee, get it weighed and checked before being paid. It was really awesome watching this happen in real time. Jesus would but dry, wet and Pasilia (very low grade for the domestic market) coffee, each price was cleary marked and seems an incredibly fair and transparent way of buying coffee.

After 20 minutes or so, with Jesus in tow we headed up to the first farm of the day, owned and farmed by Freddie Pacue. Once again (and unsurprisingly) the views on this farm were incredible, with a river running through the bottom, the mountains in the backdrop, just jaw droppingly beautiful. It really is impossible to put into words the beauty of this country and these coffee farms, I just hope I’m doing them justice.

Freddie had only bought this land five years ago and has done an incredible job transforming the land into a thriving coffee plantation. With many different varietals on display, a truly lovely farm.

Freddie seemed delighted to be showing us around, he took genuine pleasure in showing off his farm and rightly so. He particularly enjoyed it when most of the group (including Jacob and myself) took a tumble of the plantation, there was some serious chuckles going on.

As well as coffee, Freddie also kept cattle and the occasional orange tree. As we walk past a healthy looking tree, like a cat Freddie was up the tree and it was raining oranges. I managed to get my hands on a really juicy looking bad boy. First thing that took me by surprise was how hard and thick the peel was, however, once I got into it, the juiciest, sweetest, most orangey orange I have ever had. The quality of the produce on this trip was been just wonderful. We had a look at Freddie’s processing methods, a really clean and modern processing area.

From here, we hopped back into the cars and did a short drive to Feddie’s home. The family had put on lunch for us. I was now becoming quite the connoisseur of broth’s and this one won “broth of the trip”, a really flavoursome veg broth with potatoes, plantain and yuca. The vegetables all had a really great texture and full of flavour. Alongside this we had; salad, rice, the biggest avocado I’ve ever seen and some chicken.

Unfortunately, due to the groups earlier tummy issues, we were all a little more cautious about what we ate, so a lot of the chicken was left. We felt terrible as the farmers' hospitality was incredible but most of the group didn’t want to take the chance. I however gave it a real good go.

I still can’t quite get over how kind and welcoming all the farmers have been, such warmth and generosity from people. Eating lunch and having coffee at 1650 masl, on a coffee farm, in Colombia will NEVER get old, I’m running out of adjectives to describe this place.

After lunch, Freddie showed us the famous Coca plant. I was blown away, the lives lost, the money spent and the danger the off product from this plant brings is scary. It looked like any normal shrub, but really was not. It’s such a shame that this naturally occurring plant has bought so much devastation to a wonderful country. Enough said for now about this, such a shame as it’s a very pretty plant.

From lunch it was back into the cars and headed back into Inza to drop Jesus off and then the drive to Popayan. The drive took about two and a half hours and was a wonderful drive over the mountains, at the highest point we reached 3300 masl, the air was thin and dare I say it, it was cold! The views from this point were again incredible, but the landscape started to change, it was still lush thick green but the types of shrubbery and tress are different.

As we first entered the area of Cauca a, we were ‘greeted’ at the border by the indigenous group CRIC. The CRIC make up members from all the indigenous groups of Cauca and monitor and ‘police’ the area. There is an agreement with local law enforcement that the CRIC have powers to stop and detain. I was grateful to be in the car with Ivan, as it was not like a traditional border and if travelling solo would have been somewhat strange and a little terrifying.

The CRIC are very cautious on who they let into Cauca. There is still a lot of trouble within the area on drug cartels, gangs and still some rebel FARC guerrillas within the area. This trip actually had to change itinerary due to the safety issues in the North and West of Cauca, terrifying stuff. A lot of sign posts still had FARC gratify on them.

We passed through with no issues but enough talking points for days and headed into Popayan. We were staying at an old 1600s Spanish monastery in the centre, Dann Monasterio. A beautiful place for our last few nights.

It was here that we said our goodbyes to Hernan and Ivan from Racafe. What a shift these chaps had put in, incredible hosts, such warmth and knowledge, some long hours behind the wheel but were never to busy to stop for a question or help out where ever they could. Thanks you gents.

After sorrow came great joy as when the Racafe guys left Elisabeth and Hernan from CENCOIC came to join us. We headed out for a bite to eat. It was great to see Elisabeth again and even more so, was really touching that she remembered me from her visit to Sheffield, such a lovely friendly person.

After a couple of cerveza and a lovely meal it was time for bed… 

A big day of CENCOIC farms tomorrow!

Steve Hampshire

Head of Coffee