Colombia
Caldas
Muñoz Famliy
Finca La Guamera
Caturra, Castillo, Colombia
Honey
December-February
Berries, Dark Chocolate, Maple, Stone Fruit
1500 meters
N/A
70kg
SOLD OUT
Coffee lots from Finca La Guamera selected for Honey and Natural processing are the result of a special two-year fertilization program yielding cherries with more than 20 degrees Brix. After harvesting, coffee grown on Finca La Guamera destined for special processing is transferred to Finca Berlin, where La Meseta has 600sq meters of African drying beds, the largest raised bed processing facility in Colombia. The drying area is covered with clear plastic and includes air circulators that activate automatically when the temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius.
Coffee is fermented between 36 and 42 hours then moved to the drying beds until it reaches 20% humidity. Next, the coffee is moved to a drying silo until it reaches 11.5% humidity, where it is left for a period of rest. For Honey coffee, 70% of the mucilage is left on the beans.
The five Muñoz siblings inherited Finca La Guamera from their mother, whose father left it to her. The farm, a modest property in the hills above the city of Chinchina, fell into disuse until around 30 years ago. After the 1985 explosion of the volcano Nevado de Ruiz, new farmers moved to the land adjacent to La Guamera. Because they were new to growing coffee and did not have the infrastructure or know how to conduct post-harvest processing, they sold coffee to the Muñoz’s, who had a small wet mill on their property at La Guamera.
While the family never intended to be coffee buyers, this was the foundation that grew into the dry milling and export company La Meseta, named for their grandfather’s original farm. The Muñoz family continues to grow and process coffee on La Guamera, in facilities steps from the family home. The land has been well tended across generations and the trees produce plump cherries that lend themselves to natural, honey, and classic Colombian fully washed processing.
Caldas is one of Colombia’s principal coffee growing Departments. Along with neighboring Risaralda and Quindío, it forms part of the “coffee axis” or “coffee triangle,” indicating the important coffee activities—from research to social support programs to freeze drying to dry milling—that take place in the area, which is in turn part of the Coffee Cultural Landscape, recognized by UNESCO as a World Coffee Cultural Heritage site.
Caldas’ rolling landscape is defined by slopes planted with coffee. High, chilly cities and towns sit along mountain ridges, where smallholder farms and mid-sized estates are planted with predominately monoculture coffee, protected from excess sun by the region’s near constant misty cloud cover. Many programs of the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation have their official seats in Caldas, including the Cenicafe research facility.
Many farms in Caldas are comparatively accessible by main road, facilitating speed of processing and export. The Department is home to many respected universities and coffee producers have access to many business and education resources. The city of Chinchiná is also home to one of Ally’s Colombian export partners, Compañía Cafetalera La Meseta, a family business run by the five Muñoz siblings.
