Colombia Suukala 250g

Café Agrario is an association of producers from Ortega in Tolima.

This association started with a political purpose, where the leader never had the intention to look for help from the government or other entities that seek to help growers have a better yield and quality. At the beginning this did not pose any problems for the associates, but as time passed by and more associations started to form in the region the associates noticed that those kinds of help is what the associations are built for - not for political purposes.This original political leader came from the guerrilla warfare/conflict that Tolima was known for in previous years.

After 6 years the association changed its leader and its course and started to receive help from entities from the government. The progress of the association and the coffee growers regarding quality and quantity was huge. As a consequence, the leader seeked to sell as much as possible and started to sell the coffee on credit. Apparently, the leader sold to companies that were having hard times and went bankrupt and the coffee growers never managed to get the payments of the coffee they had delivered.

Even though all 35 families that make part of this association had a rough time after this inconvenience, the growers are still producing their coffee - striving to find new ways to add value to their product. They have focused on specialty coffee, trying to increase their income by producing better quality coffee.

The coffee from this association is processed as fully washed coffee since drying the coffee in their climate is particularly difficult and the farm extensions of the growers here are larger than in most places of Colombia due to the armed conflict. Since the guerrilla presence was so big in the area, people would sell their land very cheap, implying that the people that stayed hace large extensions (5-40 hectares).

The growers float the coffee to get rid of unwanted material and void coffee beans, then pulp the coffee and let it fermenting overnight for 16-20 hours depending on the weather, to the wash it extensively before taking it to the parabolic solar dryers that are used for 8-12 days to dry the coffee to 10.5%.

The biggest challenge the growers in the area face is lack of knowledge and limited communication since they are very far away from any nearby town. Hence, the workshops from Siruma have been very useful for them to acquire new knowledge and have a big progress in their quality and moisture control.