This program exists through the collaboration of us as buyers with the exporter and local Cooperative. The Cooperative facilitates training a selected group of pickers and identifies a group of farmers to participate in the project. Where we as the buyers agree to pay a premium for the coffees to cover the additional costs involved in ensuring the pickers receive a salary and legal benefits.

This concept will both promote integrity in what we pay for coffees through the supply chain and in addition should result in better quality coffees due to better cherry selection.

This lot is made up of coffees contributed by 15 small farmers in Narino, below you can see the weight in parchment and the name of each farmer contributing. This group of farmers have all undergone the training to be pickers for this program, and they are all picking their own and each others coffee according to strict requirements of only adequately ripe cherry.

• Claudio Horacio Tejada Nandar – 2%
• Jesus Alirio De La Cruz Tejada – 9%
• Lauro Fernando Burbano Chaves – 9%
• Mirian Mercedes De La Cruz Tejada – 3%
• Jose Vicente Burbano Chaves – 9%
• Jose Emilio Burbano Yaluzan – 1%
• Nelson Antonio Chaves Burbano – 5%
• Angel Maria De La Cruz Tejada – 6%
• Gladis Beatriz Chavez Lasso – 15%
• Pedro Alfonso De La Cruz Tejada – 3%
• Carlos Efrain Cortes – 14%
• Carlos Alfredo Burbano Chavez – 10%
• Bernardo Chavez Rosero – 3%
• Olmedo Celestino Chaves Lasso – 10%
• Jose Macerio Paz – 2%

By buying this coffee you are insuring the pickers get a salary along with legal health care and pension payments, as well as paying the farmers a price that allows them to live and continue producing coffee.

Processing

The coffee from Narino is generally fully washed, meaning pulped and fermented the traditional way. There is a few exceptions where farmers are using eco-pulpers with mechanical removal of mucilage, and/or are doing honeys, but it’s still not to common.

Dry fermentation

This is the most common and widely used method. The farmer will have a small beneficio, a small manual or electric pulper and a fermentation tank. They pulp the cherries in the afternoon. The coffees are going straight from the pulper in to the fermentation tank. It can sit there from one to two days, depending on the temperature. Higher temperature will speed up the fermentation process, and lower temperature will slow it down. Some producers do intermediate rinsing with water, that can also help them control the process.

Washing and grading

They normally stir the coffees in tanks or small channels before they remove the floaters. For the ones without channels it’s common to wash the coffees in the fermentation tank and skim off the floaters before it goes to the drying.

Drying

For the smallholders in regions like Huila the coffees are commonly sun dried in parabolic dryers that almost works as green houses. The better producers have well ventilated facilities. There are many different variations and constructions, but generally they are all systems that is able to protect the coffee from rain. We have generally seen that the producers that have constructions with good ventilation and manage to dry the coffee down to below 11% in 10 – 18 days often have very good and consistent coffees.