What specialty coffee means from the Origin?
When you pick specialty coffee, you are making an influence on the entire supply chain, but you are especially helping the coffee grower, the farm where the initial magic happens, and it is a chance to thank them for their efforts.
From the origin to your cup, this is the experience of a Colombian coffee plantation: Finca Napoles, which is committed to producing Geisha Organic, Tabi, Maragogipe, Castillo with distinct method.
The Process
Finca Napoles' plantation covers 102 acres, with 45 acres dedicated to coffee production, 50 acres to properties and animal rest places, and the remaining acres to forest.
Specialty coffee production requires more attention to the crops and coffee cherries, longer drying times, adaptation to facilities and investment, as well as sustainability and returning to nature what belongs to it, all in order to produce a final bean that is full of fruity notes and provides a great aftertaste and experience in each cup.
The Challenges
As nature is the main raw material uncertainty and weather conditions are the main challenge, standardizing the result and quality in each harvesting season is demanding, not using any kind of pecticides to protect the crops and only natural barrers like the Geisha variety, which is surrounded by other variety plantation to protect the crops from natural diseases.
Growing coffee at high elevations makes it less vulnerable to illness, which is why we attempt to keep all plantations between 1700 and 1900 MASL.
Coffee that only grows in the shadows requires a natural forest surrounding and within the farms.
Every bean is selected by hand, gently and without harming the tree.
We filter the water waste after the initial coffee wash to avoid introducing unclean water into the region.
The restriction of heavy industrial machinery going through the plantation, fertilizing the soil, or violently traveling through the coffee region, because coffee is brought by horse, and we do not allow any machine or car to damage the natural environment and produce fossils such as petroleum or oil.
These are just a few of the daily challenges that specialty coffee and organic farms confront in producing a sustainable bean, but the impact is significant.
The Impact
The farm's area is home to 192 exotic bird species, out of 260 in the country, and turning the production into organic and specialty coffee ensures them a safe place to live. Having back species that had been slowly disappearing for years, such as monkeys, deer, and others, as a result of stopping fumigation with vermicides has a positive impact, and being fairly compensated for the effort makes it sustainable and satisfactory.
Source: Finca Napoles - Santa Marta Colombia - The Colombian Factory SAS
