This dark roast blend combines a long-standing relationship in southern Colombia (back for the 5th year!) with a new coffee from the Hafi washing station in Burundi.

Colombia Tablón de Gómez
In the southeast of the department of Nariño, there is a municipality called El Tablón de Goméz, home to the producers from El Tablón. Tablón de Gómez, or El Tablón as people in the region call it, is a tiny community nestled in the Macizo Colombiano, with a very strong indigenous influence and culture.

This is the fifth year we've featured this collection of coffees from farmers in the El Tablón area - though the individual farmers contributing may change from year to year, the quality and flavor consistency is assured. This year, four smallholder farmers contributed: Deyby Caez Erazo, Erwin Muñoz Benavides, John Hernandez Ordoñez, and Javier Delgado Ramirez.

Coffee production in this region is relatively new due to the presence of guerrilla groups over the past few decades. Three years ago, our importer partner Caravela had the opportunity to start sourcing coffee from this special region, working directly with the coffee farmers, as well as with the indigenous community (Resguardo de Inga Aponte).

Burundi Hafi
This coffee was grown by several smallholder producers in the Muyinga province, in a remote part of Burundi, at least a six-hour drive from the capital - and that’s if the rain hasn’t made the roads impassable. Currently producing only natural processed coffees, this washing station is now building a new wet mill for future fully washed coffees.

Jeanine Niyonzima from JNP coffee importers calls the coffee from this new terroir Hafi, which means “close” in Kirundi. Before the washing station opened, the smallholder farmers in the area faced a 20km (12 mile) journey to deliver their freshly harvested coffee cherries to the nearest wet mill. As JNP tells us, "With the hilly terrain, that was too far to travel in one day." The best quality coffees are ones that are able to be processed the same day, and a wet mill nearby makes high quality coffee possible for the producers growing coffee near Hafi.

There are about 2000 washing station workers who are also coffee farmers, and have a lot of experience working at other wet mills - simply put, they are an incredible asset for quality processing.

Working with our importer partner Jeanine from JNP coffee, we can see the time she's spent building relationships and trust with these farmers. One of JNP's renowned initiatives is the Dushime® program, or their Second Payment Day. The JNP Coffee team visits the farmers before each harvest, providing cash incentives based on the previous harvest's quality and the global market response. The second payment serves as a significant motivator, encouraging farmers to prioritize quality control. Janine and JNP have recently achieved a milestone of collectively paying half a million dollars in second payments since inception. Additionally, most of these farmers received financial literacy education and leadership skill training. Rooted in strong producer partnerships, these efforts empower the farmers and their families to build resilience and expand their coffee production capacity.