Colombia Huila Santa Maria

Colombian farmers are really starting to pay attention to quality and discovering that higher quality equals higher prices for their crops. The Santa Maria village within Huila is growing a reputation for sweet, clean, bright coffee. It's one of the highest producing areas within Huila.

The Huila region is generally my favorite. It sits in the south center of the country, enjoys altitudes of 4500-5000 feet, and often has more of a cocoa and sweet stone-fruit taste than those in the northern regions of Colombia.

This is a good everyday Colombian. It is not by definition a microlot, and it does not have a particular set of flavor notes to make it stand out. I roast it as a medium roast and get the slightest hints of peach and tangerine,  it's sweet, not bitter, not astringent, but it does have a nice acidity to it. Fill up your mug, grab a bagel, and you're off to a good day.  You can also take it as dark as a minute of 2nd cracks if you prefer French Roast coffees.

This lot comes from a group of farmers with small plots of land. Several purchasing agencies around the area meticulously control each purchase to guarantee traceability, fairness, and quality. The farmers all use manual hand-crank depulping machines to remove the cherry from the beans, and raised beds for drying the coffee which gives the coffee good air circulation. It is unusual for the farmer to be able to oversee how their coffee is handled, sorted, and prepped every step of the way, but their efforts pay off. 

US Arrival April 2024