Diego Abarca, owner and operator of Alto San Juan Micromill, is one of the youngest producers we work with: He's been involved in coffee for all of his 22 years, and after finishing school he decided to stay to help his parents on their coffee farm instead of going off to college. Four years ago, his father gave Diego one of the family farms, and he has been running it by himself, from the agriculture to the sales of the coffee.
The first year that Café Imports bought coffee from Diego, it was a small lot, just 10 bags; this year his production and quality have both been high enough to allow us to buy several different lots from him. This lot comprises a selection of Catuai variety coffees from one of Diego's farms.
Diego focuses primarily on washed coffees because he prefers the profile, and as a medium-size producer, it is easier for him to control quality by streamlining his processes, rather than have several different styles of processing and drying at the mill.
Diego Abarca is a good example of our stratified buying program as this microlot was bought based on cupping score. Diego produced 108 specialty bags from which 46 entered into the microlot program, divided into 3 lots. This is a 16 microlot bags lot. The remaining 62 bags, entered into the community coffee program, allowing us to buy all of Diego's production.
