Origin: La Vega Organic by Emilse Rubio

La Vega

We started working with a group of farmers producing organic coffees for the first time in 2017. The group was initially made up of 30 farmers that came together so that as a group they could strengthen their economy, and now there are 59 farmers who are a part of the association. Emilse Rubio is a member of the association.

Emilse told us that she grows coffee because she has learnt to do this since she was a child, she plans to continue to improve the organic practices on her farm and improve the sustainability of her production.

La Vega is situated in the mountains at an altitude of 1980 masl. Emilse is growing coffee along with other produce for home consumption, the coffee farm is 4 hectares and she is growing Colombia, Castillo and Caturra.

When we asked Emilse what she would like to tell roasters who buy her coffee this is what she responded with,

‘Try so sell an organic coffee to the customers. Colombia it is a country with a rich soil, but growers should take care of it. It’s could be possible only if all consumers are aware about the impact of purchase an organic coffee.’

Picking

Coffees are hand picked in 3-4 passes. Meaning the producers/workers pick the ripe cherries in one block. Then they might wait a few weeks until it’s again a decent amount of ripe cherries to pick in that same place. Generally the first and last pass is of lower quality, and the second and third will be considered as the best, with more ripe cherries and uniform quality. When we can, we try to buy parchment harvested in these two passes.

Emilse also conducts an additional round of sorting before she pulps the cherry, to ensure the best fruit are pulped to obtain the best quality. The main harvest is from March to August when 80% of the production will be picked. The second harvest from October to December accounts for 20% of the total production.

Processing

The coffee from Tolima 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. At La Vega the coffee is fermented for 36 hours, 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 Tolima 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%, at La Vega the coffee is dried from 15-20 days having very good and consistent results.

By receiving premium payments, the producers can improve their facilities, by building new or reconstruct the dryers to increase ventilation and potentially add shade nets to slower drying, and hence improve the quality and longevity of the coffee.