Javier, his wife Maria, and their three children live together near the village of El Mirador, just outside of Pitalito, Huila. Their farm is a quaint 5.75 hectares, of which 4.5 is cultivated with a mix of Castillo and Caturra coffee trees. Javier and Maira both attended the SENA (National Service of Learning) institute to further their understanding of specialty coffee production. This is a technical school just outside of Pitalito that focuses on coffee education in terms of cupping, cultivation, and processing techniques.
Maria and Javier have recently made adjustments to their processing techniques based on the knowledge they have ascertained from this experience. They now harvest only full-ripe cherries between 18–24 Brix degrees, pulp their cherries immediately and dry-ferment for a period of 24–36 hours before washing their coffee three times. Once fully cleaned, the beans are moved to a parabolic dryer where they typically spend 8–15 days before they are sacked and stacked on wooden pallets and sent to be milled.
To learn more about Colombian coffee, visit our Colombia origin page.
