Colombia La Celia Regional
Classic Profile | Medium roast
Tasting Notes: Herbal, Milk Chocolate, Raw Sugar
IT ALL STARTS AT THE COFFEE FARM
The La Celia farmer group is as independent as it gets. The 21 smallholder farmer-members all work together to increase quality and gain higher prices for their coffee. Gender equity is important to the group, and 33% of the farmers represented here are women.
We purchased this coffee through La Real Expedicion Botanical, founded by Herbert Peñazola. La REB represents a collective of farmers across all of Colombia, and focuses on direct trade between roasters and farmers. James was able to sit down over Facetime recently and have a chat with Herbert about this unique farmer group!
These farmers really run their own show: they have an office & warehouse in town, a coffee roastery, and even a coffee shop! Especially critical to their success, they have their own lab for evaluating their coffee, which also allows them to conduct cupping (a way of tasting coffee) and roasting training, and teach others about quality.
Farmers just having access to a quality control lab where they can roast and taste their own coffee is very rare, let alone a lab that they run themselves. Though these farmers have been growing coffee for much longer, the quality lab itself is in its third generation, so to speak. The first coffee taster in charge of quality at the lab was a young person from the area, and he trained all of the older producers to become quality tasters, also encouraged his dad and his dad's friends to become tasters and run the lab! Now that the farmers have been running the lab on their own, they even have a coffee shop in town with espresso machines where some of the kids of the farmers work.
Herbert let us know that although coffee doesn't actually provide a great income for the group, they use it as a cash crop to finance other things that they are growing, and projects they’re working on. They want to provide each farmer differentiated markets - some in the project have up to seven distinct agricultural units within their farm - for example, one coffee farmer also has fish and grows plantains.
Herbert, a coffee farmer himself, says that this is exactly what he has been working on with his own CDNT group, also in the Risaralda region - to diversify what the group grows and creates so that they can create a more sustainable livelihood: one that doesn’t rely on charity, and that can also interest the young people in the community (who, like many children of coffee farmers around the world, are leaving coffee farming for jobs in cities).
Unfortunately, the region around La Celia was deeply deforested about 50 years ago. According to Herbert, the way that coffee is grown in much of Colombia is not very ecosystem friendly, but this is one organization that acknowledges this. The group is all about sustainability, and they are constantly working to figure out how to best work within the ecosystems that surround them as they work hard to re-forest their land.
LaREB has been working with the farmers of La Celia for the past 6 years, and has provided them with tools to keep improving, like their inventory tracking software. LaREB has also helped the farmers of La Celia with market access for their coffee by searching out roasters around the globe to purchase their coffee.
TRACEABILITY
PRODUCER
Moises Cajica, María Echeverry, Alberto Vásquez, Carlos Arturo Cano, Daniel Garcia, Luz Elena Uribe, Heriberto Mejía, William Sepúlveda, Leo Herrera, Omar Parra, Diana Sepúlveda, Alba Uribe, Nancy Cardona, Diego Ruiz, Jhon Jader, Antonio Herrera, Lubián Restrepo, Nanci Cardona, Ángela Betancourt, Julio Sosa, Fabio Moreno
MILL / WASHING STATION
On farms
PROCESSING
Washed
ALTITUDE
1650 meters
DID YOU KNOW
La Celia is in what’s known as the “classic coffee axis” of Colombia. This is made up of the three major coffee growing regions of northern Colombia: Risaralda, Caldas and Quinidío. Although this area was known for producing mostly commodity coffee for generations, farmers there have recently begun to specialize in higher quality, specialty coffee.
PRICE TRANSPARENCY
$4.15
Price paid by Driftaway
$2.97
Free on Board price
$1.93
Farm Gate price
$1.99
Fair Trade price per pound
$1.79
Coffee C-Market price per pound
$0.05
Driftaway's World Coffee Research contribution per pound
This coffee travelled 2,469 miles to the Driftaway Coffee roastery in Queens.
Love the coffee? You can share your compliments & tasting observations with the farmers.
WHY DID WE SELECT THIS COFFEE?
This is a delicious selection of microlots from the area surrounding the village of La Celia. These farmers’ coffees were tasted several times by representatives with LaREB before being chosen to be included.
This wasn’t a single-time purchase for LaREB: they are involved in an ongoing project to continue to improve the quality of these farmers’ coffees year after year, and turn them into high-end microlots. We are excited to be able to roast and showcase their hard work with this super sweet and chocolatey coffee.
AVERAGE CUPPING SCORE
85.63
/100
85.63
SCAA Cupping Score
30 x 35 kg
Bags purchased
2 years
Length of producer relationship
100% (in 2022)
Transparent coffees purchased
HOW DID WE ROAST THIS COFFEE?
This coffee is being roasted by Ian T. from March 25 to April 19 in Brooklyn. We use the Loring Kestrel roaster for this profile. We have strict guidelines for each of the coffee profiles, and this roast has to pass the development time ratio test as measured in real-time by the roasting software, Cropster. Once it does, it is approved for production.
QUALITY CONTROL
We perform Quality Control via a process of coffee tasting called cupping on all of our production roasts once a week at our roastery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Each cupping is conducted by James M. and Ian T. using standard equipment, and is logged by our Q-certified cupper Ian T. All coffees are evaluated on a scoring scale of 0 to 3.
- 3.0 = exceptional roast - exceeds expectations
- 2.5 = on par with profile - matches expectations
- 2.0 = good roast, but 1 or 2 elements could be improved - needs improvement
- 1.5 or lower = failed - do not ship
PRODUCTION AND SHIPPING
Less than 24 hours after roasting, we bag your coffee in our production facility in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Our production team is led by Anthony and Torie, and supported by a rotating cast of local artists, musicians and independent professionals.
AT YOUR HOME
Brew this coffee with your favorite home brewer and enjoy the taste of incredible coffee! Here are a few tips on how to make the best coffee on each brewer.
View other posts about how to make better coffee at home on our blog Coffeecademy.