Jantioquia: A customer’s perspective; Seeing Colombia for the first time

Jantioquia: A customer’s perspective;

Fiona Grant from Glen Lyon Coffee Roasters guest blogs

Standing in the middle of Plaza Botero, a plastic cup of fresh mango spiked with salt and lime in my hand, musica tropical blaring out from a passing taxi and Mercanta’s Juan Cano pointing out the city sights and I’m one very happy gringa. There can’t be many places in the world to better counteract the effects of a Scottish winter than Medellin. An explosion of colour and heat set against a dramatic backdrop of steep, forested hillsides, Colombia’s second largest city is a seriously fun place to kick off a trip to origin.

Once dubbed the most dangerous city on earth, Medellin now seems anything but. Forget Pablo Escobar and Narcos (and to be honest I think most paisas – as the citizens of Medellin and its 

province of Antioquia are known -­‐ are fairly tired of the association) this is a city on the up. The economy is booming and the once dangerous, isolated neighbourhoods that sprawl up the hillsides are now integrated by an amazing system of metros and cable cars that can lift you from downtown to a hill top barrio in a matter of minutes.

The Escalator at Comuna 13

At Comuna 13, once considered the city’s most dangerous neighbourhood, we ride a system of escalators up the equivalent of 28 stories and admire the street art and valley views. Back in the leafy neighbourhood of El Poblado we down pints of limonada de coco at bars that bring you three caipirinhas for the price of one at happy hour and hang out in the Zona Rosada with its speciality coffee shops and cool little rooftop restaurants.

Here at Glen Lyon we have a not so secret obsession with the fabulous Antioquian coffees that we source through Mercanta. With farm names that roll off the tongue like salsa melodies -­ La Falda, Joyeria, Mercedes, Camelia – these are coffees that we (and our customers) have fallen in love with over the years. So when Mercanta kindly invited me to visit Antioquia this January you can guess I didn’t have to think twice.

Travelling southwest out of Medellin down Ruta 60 we pass the mighty peak of Cerro Bravo and cross the Rio Cauca before climbing once again into the heart of the coffee growing hills of this amazing province. Coffee seemed to be growing everywhere, usually on impossibly steep hillsides centred around farms – or fincas – themselves a pretty flash of colour with flower filled verandas, fruit trees and a friendly farm dog knocking about. Honestly, give me a hammock and a good book and I could move right in.

Cupping with the crew at Coop-Andes

The Co-­‐operativa de Caficultores de Andes (or Cooperandes) is based in the nearby town of Andes and works with about 3,500 coffee growers in the surrounding area. Most of these farms are not much more than one or two hectares in size and as well as coffee usually grow bananas and plantain (for shade as well as extra income) and often have a pig or two as well in the backyard. We were driven around the area by Cooperandes’ Julia and Melissa – possibly the two coolest Colombian women I know – who took it in turns to fearlessly navigate the landcruiser along dirt track roads of hairpin bends and outrageous gradients while regaling us with stories of failed brakes and coffee adventures.

Melissa & Juliana from Coop Andes

Melissa and Julia’s intricate knowledge of the farms and the producers they work with is impressive, as was the evident easy camaraderie they had with the farmers. At Finca El Clavel, Luis Giraldo told us how he composts his coffee pulp to use on his farm. Three generations of Luis’ family have farmed coffee, bananas and avocado at this beautiful farm, centred round a delightful 100 year old farmhouse at almost 2000m above sea level. At Finca Heliconia, the lovely Alexander family invited us into their kitchen to show us how they can now roast their own coffee on a stove top pan after hulling the parchment inside an inner bicycle tube. Technology at its most simple but effective. (Note to self here. Those harmless looking little yellow flies that land on your bare arms – yes they do bite and yes you will still be itching from them six weeks later.)

Most varietals grown at the farms were Caturra and Castillo and what the farmers refer to as “dos mil” – and which, back home, we call Colombia. Leaf rust is of course a worry and you could see the very occasional tree affected by roya but probably the main concern for the farmers we meet is being able to find and afford pickers during the busy harvest. Sadly as is the case in so much of rural South America young people are increasingly leaving the countryside and heading for the cities.

Hospitality at the incredible Finca La Chila from Dona Isabel

The hospitality that we encountered in each of these farms was second to none. We were welcomed with pitchers of freshly squeezed orange juice, platefuls of ripe mango and endless cups of coffee before being walked through every aspect of the production process – picking the cherries, seeing the parchment drying on the roof tops and witnessing the de-pulper in action. I was struck by just how integrated the whole coffee process is to the producers’ homes. Coffee trees are planted right up to the house and the de-pulpers, fermentation tanks and drying beds more often than not form a composite part of the farmhouses themselves.

One of my most memorable moments was at the delightful Finca La Chila, where the owner Doña Isabel is almost 90 years old. This wonderful lady is an absolute inspiration. After nimbly showing us round her beautifully maintained farm she disappeared into her kitchen and came out 15 minutes later with stacks of sweet arepas de chocolo and slabs of salty fresh cheese, a combination so damn perfect that I’m still dreaming about them a month later back home in Scotland.

We spent the night in the pretty town of Jardin, the most perfect of Latin American pueblos that could have come straight out of the pages of a Garcia Marquez novel – all plazas and pavement bars, tuk tuks and moustachioed coffee farmers strolling into town at dusk. After an eventful and, for some of us, a sleepless night thanks to, and in no particular order: allergic reaction (me), burst pipes and subsequent flooding (Juan), relentless ringing of church bells (Stephen and Alda), mild carbon monoxide poisoning (Grant) we sleepily emerged into the dawn to gather ourselves at a hole in the wall café serving warm empanadas and cups of tinto (Colombian style coffee).

Two days later and back in Medellin it was an absolute pleasure to meet up once again with the wonderful Pedro Echavarria of Pergamino Café as we set off in convoy to his family’s beautiful Santa Barbara Estate a couple of hours’ drive out of Medellin. We’ve been roasting Santa Barbara coffees for a few years now and they are always some of our favourite Colombians to come into the roastery. It was fantastic to be able to see the wet mill at La Joyeria and see pickers bringing in the last of the season’s crop – often the only clue to their camouflaged presence among the coffee trees would be a beaten up motorbike and sacks of coffee cherry by the roadside. At lunchtime we stopped at Finca Camelia, a Glen Lyon favourite and one of the Santa Barbara estate farms. It didn’t take long to realise why everyone is so excited about visiting this place – it turns out that the farm manager’s wife is the most fantastic cook. Here we were treated platefuls of beans, rice, patacones – twice fried green plantain – heaped with hogao and the best chicharron (crispy pork belly) this side of the Atlantic.

Later on we watched the sun set whilst standing among the caturra trees high up on a steep hillside at Finca Veracruz before stopping off for steak and cerveza at a roadside shack on the way back to Medellin. For a coffee roaster obsessed with South America you can guess that this is pretty much as good as it gets.

With Pedro at La Joyeria mill

The Pergamino offices are based at their dry mill in Medellin and the next day Pedro treated us to two cupping tables of some amazing lots from the Santa Barbara farms and Pergamino’s partners in other provinces including some very good lots from Cauca. We also had a fascinating tour around the dry mill.

Trips to origin are so important for roasters like ourselves. I can honestly say that I learned more about specialty coffee in these ten days in Colombia than I would in a year spent at a cupping table back home. Not only was it a joy to hang out with fellow UK roasters Diana and Grant and the lovely Mercanta team but to be able to meet the producers and to put a face to the farmers’ names that we so proudly display on every pack of coffee we sell means everything to us.

So thank you Mercanta for inviting me… it really was a trip of a lifetime.

Fiona Grant is the owner and founder of Glen Lyon Coffee Roasters, based in Aberfeldy, Scotland. Fiona also has extensive experience as a journalist, and this blog post originally appeared in her own, fantastic journal chronicling her travels. We suggest you check it out!