Colombia Tolima

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GROWER
Yanín Díaz
Finca El Paraíso

REGION
Planadas, Tolima

CULTIVARS
Caturra and Colombia

ELEVATION
1880-2000 m

HARVEST DATES
May-September 2021

LOOK FOR
Plum | Orange | Dried Cherry

Planadas means plains in Spanish. It is an ironic name for the place where this coffee is grown, since there is very little level ground in Planadas beyond the small mesa that is home to its quaint downtown and the modest landing strip that serves as its airport. In every direction as you move out of town, the rugged terrain rises and falls in this stunning stretch of the Colombian Andes, where conditions for coffee-growing are optimal.

During the 20th century, most Colombian coffee came from the departments of Caldas, Quindío, Risaralda, and the northern part of Tolima which together formed Colombia’s Eje Cafetero, or Coffee Axis. Over the past 20 years, a new region to the south of the Eje Cafetero has emerged to challenged its primacy: together Cauca, Huila, Nariño, and the southern part of Tolima form the Eje de Calidad, or Quality Axis. If those regions should sound familiar, it’s because — as the name suggests — they are the source of Colombia’s best coffees. And in just the past few years, the Eje de Calidad overtook the Eje Cafetero in total production, marking a definitive southward shift in the center of gravity of Colombian coffee.

Over the past decade, own sourcing program in Colombia has focused relentlessly on smallholder farmers in Cauca, Huila, and Nariño, with little exploration of Tolima. This organic lot comes to us via In-Conexus, our partners in sourcing projects in Huila and Nariño. It was grown by Yanín Díaz and is our first single-origin release from Tolima in years.

Michael Sheridan
Director of Sourcing and Shared Value