Visiting the Hato Viejo farm in Colombia

Hato Viejo is a tiny farm in Colombia high up in the Pasto region. The farm is owned by Marta Luz Camelo Guevara. Oliver, our green coffee buyer from Condesa Co.Lab visited this farm recently and was shown around the place by Marta’s husband Alvaro. We are just about to showcase a beautiful 100% caturra coffee from this farm and in the cup we've been experiencing a beautiful creamy coffee with chocolate, caramel, mandarin and crispy green apple. Hato Viejo will be showcased in all our stores and partner cafes for a week starting Monday August 14, 2017. Hato Viejo is situated at an impressive 2000 meters above sea level and it's only five hectares, but has about 29 000 coffee trees which are partly shaded with plantain (cooking bananas) and tomato trees. On the farm Marta also grows seven varieties of lemon as well as limes, oranges, and a strange berry that looks like a Boysenberry. Oliver writes,

We met in a small town called Narino. Around the northern side of the Volcan Valares and headed out in convoy to Finca Hato Vajo. The road is all gravel and dirt and you actually head down the hill to 2000 meters where the farm and family house is located. Set on the side of the valley on a parcel of 5 hectares it has spectacular view over the valley and small airport below. We got the full tour of the farm from Alvaro who enjoyed showing his different citrus trees, oranges, limes lemon and fruit collection. These make up the shade trees as well as the plantain which are spread liberally around the property. When we arrived the harvest had finished and they were pruning part of the farm for next years crop. Processing was done on site, both pulping and drying. At 2000 meters they had default cold fermentation as it got cold at night between 2-10 degrees celsius. Fermentation was done as a dry ferment and then washed before being spread into the patio to dry, which was the roof of the house! We were interested to see them running tests on their fermentation and processing, and they were experimenting with long 40 hours ferments for the new crop. It was a real pleasure to visit and we hope to continue working with Marta and Alvaro into the future.