After a tour of his farm where we saw the many varieties being grown and how it was all processed we headed down to the local village where El Carmen have a purpose built cupping lab. Everyone took part in the cupping including many of the children. We even had a full presentation and brew made for us by 7 year old Mafe using coffee from her families farm ‘La Finca X’.
Along with Miguel and Matt from Raw Material, Juan Phillipe was also with us for the next part of the trip. He runs the dry mill in Pitalito where all of El Carmens coffee comes to be milled and bagged up. He gave us a really insightful tour of the dry mill explaining the ins and outs of every aspect of the operation. The building was huge with pipes in every direction. Coffee farmers come here to sell their parchment in bulk. Juan and his team grade the coffee to decide a fair price for the seller. They then process the coffee to get rid of the parchment and load it into sacks ready for export. Our coffee from Nicolas Leyton would have also been processed here ready to export to us here in Cornwall!
Soon after we caught a flight back to Bogotá for a short layover before another flight out to Perreira, a small town near Manizalez. It was then a couple of hours drive for a late night arrival at a hotel near our next stop for the next day, Descafecol where we headed early the next morning. This is a huge plant where all of the coffee decaffeinated in Colombia comes to be processed ( including all of Yallah’s decaf). We were given a fascinating tour of the factory and had the full processes explained to us. The coffee is first steamed in large containers and is then immersed in a solution of ethyl acetate (a naturally occurring compound extracted from sugarcane). This compound is able to extract up to 99.9% of caffeine from the beans.
The solution is then separated from the beans and the caffeine is separated out to be sold separately. The beans are then dried in large mechanical driers before being re bagged ready for export. This was a fascinating insight into the large operations involved in getting a tasty cup of decaf coffee in front of you!
Next stop was Raw Materials very own wet mill and processing station called Jamaica. Here, cherries are bought from the surrounding farms and are mostly dried still in tact to be processed as naturals. The lower altitude and therefore hotter climate of the station makes it perfect for processing and drying naturals. We watched as the workers carried huge sacks of cherries to be tipped into big flotation tanks. These tanks help to sort the good beans from the bad beans. Any bad beans that have less density will float to the top whilst the good beans sink to the bottom. The bad beans then get skimmed off the top and separated out.
Later that day we headed off on the back of an old jeep up the winding mountain roads. This was one of the highlights of the trip. The views through the valleys of coffee farms, looking over to the city of Manizalez sprawled across the mountains was one i will never forget.
After a long drive winding through the mountains on dirt tracks we finally arrived at Finca La Aurora. The collection of farms that grow coffee in this area is known as Villamaria. We cupped this coffee later on in the trip and it tastes fantastic. This will hopefully end up as one of our offerings for Yallah in the months to come! The drive back down was even more memorable as the sun set over the mountains.
The final part of the trip was spent in Raw Materials very own farm looked after and run by Miguel called El Fenix situated just outside of Armenia in Quindio. Miguel gave us a good walk around the farm explaining each varietal he had growing and the challenges faced with different types. We then had the chance to process our own coffee. We loaded the cherries that had already been partially fermented into the mill to separate the beans from the skins of the cherry. We then put the beans into a large container and washed them with fresh clean water to clear any mucilage. It was great to get our hands dirty and it gave me a real appreciation for all the hard work that goes into the processing of coffee.
The trip ended with an evening of drinking beers and playing Tejo. A traditional game in which you basically throw a big metal circle at a bunch of pouches filled with gunpowder sat on a bed of clay. The aim is to make them explode!
Seeing how much hard work goes into picking and processing coffee really puts into perspective the prices we pay for the finished product and it would definitely make people think twice before complaining about the price of a flat white.
I look forward to seeing these coffees in the roastery in the next year, and want to thank everyone at Raw Material for organising such a great trip and to all the amazing producers we met along the way.
