Here is your Colombian coffee passport

Your coffee: Colombia Argote

Argote - coffee specs

Background of this coffee in the Netherlands

Many in the coffee world have come across the name “Nariño” at some point, perhaps most famously from the fact that Starbucks sells it as a single origin offer. Nowadays there isn’t a village in the mountains of Nariño that doesn’t have sign of a (supposed) campaign running from some big coffee companies like Starbucks and Nespresso. But ever since the rise of the Third Wave and direct trade relationships, other regions such as Huila and Medellín have stolen some of Nariño’s thunder. Apart from a few notable exceptions like the efforts of the Borderlands Coffee Project to promote the region to American direct traders, the old coffee buying model still provides most of the region’s sustainable income.

Take it from us, though: Nariño is still one of the main stars of Third Wave Colombian coffee and an incredible coffee origin. Rainfall, temperature, solar radiation, organic matter in the soil, and even wind conditions are all perfectly fit to entice the coffee shrub to make the best cherries possible. 

Within Nariño, the altitude at which the village of Colón is situated is perhaps this coffee’s most unique feature: On the one hand, the shape of the mountains here allows the warm, moist winds from the valley to blow upwards at night, which makes coffee cultivation here viable at altitudes that elsewhere would kill the fragile shrubs. On the other hand, cold trade winds from the south find their way to this region. This interchange of cold and warm influence makes temperatures here fluctuate between 7 and 30 degrees Celsius, forcing the coffee to hold on to and trigger the production of more sugars, the solubles responsible for the acidity of the coffee. These dreamlike conditions are unlike we’ve ever seen anywhere in the world, and are what gives this coffee its beautiful acidities, smooth mouthfeel, and pronounced aromas.

Juan Pablo, our partner and second son of the Argote family, knew there was more to be gained from Nariño’s unique coffee. He grew up in the village of Colón Genova and has been working with coffee since he was a child. He now roasts coffee under his brand “Sol del Venado” to the local market for extra income but understood that his family’s coffee had the potential to be sold green to foreign buyers - if only he could find them... 

As with most of This Side Up’s partners, this one came to us serendipitously through an introduction from a friend of both Lennart and Juan Pablo. On an exploratory trip to Colombia in 2014 with friend and serial entrepreneur Fraser Doherty, we decided to have one last stop in Nariño to meet Juan Pablo and fellow coffee grower Hernando Gutierrez. We cupped several coffees and were blown away by how they compared to everything else we tasted on our trip. Of these coffees, Juan Pablo’s took a slight lead over the others, so we were anxious to see where it was grown.

After a six-hour drive, we arrived in the secluded village of Colón Genova, a 100-year old coffee-growing settlement on the border of the departments of Nariño and Cauca. The next days we spent in the family house and learned with how much care the entire family treated picking, sorting, and processing of the coffee. True to Colombian hospitality standards, we too were treated as family and showed around the farm and village by Juan Pablo and his father Efrain. We met other growers and talked about the needs of the community. We learned that Colón was largely left untouched by development programs, save the standard training programs of the FNC.

The example of Colón Genova shows just how greatly one can impact a community by buying coffee straight from smallholder farms. We calculated that if five containers of the village's specialty coffee could be sold through direct channels, there would be enough money to provide adequate food supplies, health care, and education for everyone there. It didn’t take long before we started discussing how we could work together to reach these goals in the years to come. The first step was to upgrade their processing standards and export their 2015 crop to Europe.

When we left Nariño, a partnership was born - and we have been in touch with Juan Pablo at least weekly ever since to talk about quality upgrading, export licensing, and a thousand other things. In May 2015, we financed 50% of the hulling machine that has allowed full processing to be in the hands of the Argote family, and in the autumn months we worked out all the bureaucratic details of how to export this coffee with the help of Hernando. 

The coffee has now arrived and surpasses all expectations: it is even more floral and bright than what we cupped. It is safe to say that this is the best bet This Side Up has ever made. The coffee is now almost sold out and we are preparing for the new harvest. Juan Pablo has been taking specialty coffee growing/cupping courses and decided that this year's premium will go towards building raised beds instead of the patio they now use, as well as upgrading all washing processes to 1) allow fewer defects to create a cleaner cup, and 2) be able to efficiently process more of the village's coffee - eventually even all of it. In Juan Pablo's own words in a Facebook chat: "my goal is not to make myself rich but to share the profits of our quality with as many growers as we can. It´s my dream that one day we can make all of Genova´s growers participate in the exportation process and have a unique quality standard."

It's our dream to be working with someone who thinks like this!