COLOMBIA MANDELA LA ESPERANZA

Beginning in 1930, Israel Correa and Carmen Rosa Vega arrived in Valle del Cauca seeking unoccupied land to start a farm, acquiring Potosi. Over the upcoming years, there weren’t major changes in their way of life, besides of raising a big family which was the Colombian tradition in those days. Following this and the lack of labor, the children had to help by doing farm work. In 1945, three different varieties were introduced to the existing Typica; Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourbon and Caturra.

Two of the eleven children, Rigoberto and Luis, showed special interest in coffee production and processing. They decided to give their crop a new direction, changing to organic in the late 90’s. Besides Potosí, another farm in the Trujillo region was acquired to enlarge the organic production, La Esperanza farm. In 2007 Don Rigoberto had the chance to lease and manage a coffee farm in the region of Boquete in Panama, called “La Carleida”, and a year later obtained first place in the “Best coffee of Panama”. At this point he decided to bring some of the Geisha seeds to Colombia, starting a new era in the history of Granja La Esperanza.

Five farms now make up the Café Granja La Esperanza: Cerro Azul, Las Margaritas, La Esperanza, Potosi and Hawaii. With a reputation for producing competition-winning coffees, processes are matched with varieties to produce unique flavour profiles.

Mandela is a self-pollinated selection from Caturra x Caturra, choosing a bean that gave the best characteristics. This was then crossed with the Timor Hybrid in order to provide some resistance to rust, before being crossed again with Ethiopian landrace varietals such as Sudan Rume, Daleco, and Villa Sarchi. The offspring from those were then selected for the best performing and the varietal stabilized, with the resultant trees exhibiting both bronze and green tips.

The picking is done manually selecting only the perfectly ripe cherries. The depulping process is done without water. Coffee is stirred and sensorial tasted to determine the ideal fermentation based on the cup profile wanted. Fermentation time for this coffee ranges between 19 and 22 hours in wholes cherries and then the cherries skin is taken out to start the second fermentation step in parchment and mucilage and last for 35 hours. Coffee is left for about 48 hours in silo (temperature approx of 35C), it is then passed to solar dry for about 15 days.