This natty Caturra is bursting with black cherry and plum! It was produced by coffee farming families based in the Planadas Municipality, located in Tolima, center-west Colombia. Their farms, sitting between 1500-2150 M.A.S.L, boast soils rich with nutrients from volcanic ash. Since 2019 these families have been working with our export partner Cofinet in order to learn how to better naturally process their coffees. The results of five years’ progress and hard work speak for themselves in this boozy belter.
Cofinet sources the coffee that forms the El Indio lot from two cooperatives in Tolima - ASOPEP (“Asociación de Productores Egológicos de Planadas”) and ASCI’SP (the “Association of Indigenous Coffee Growers of San Pedro Páez in Gaitana).
ASOPEP was established in 2013 with the aim of supporting coffee producers to improve their farming practices and processing methods - so that they can obtain a higher income for their coffees - alongside designing an environmental conservation model for their farms. The (approx. 200) members receive training and education on the production of speciality coffee, and the cooperative has also set up a youth collective to train young people in cupping, quality control and barista skills.
ASCI’SP was founded in 2014 for the purpose of benefiting the Nasa We’sx indigenous community based in the south of Gaitan, Tolima. It now has 80 coffee producing members and cultivates 207 hectares of land in total. The association has helped its members to improve agricultural practices and maintain organic and fair trade certifications that they would have been unable to access independently. It also has a quality analysis function, which enables its members to receive a premium price based on the quality of their coffee.
This coffee underwent a natural process. The ripe cherries are selectively harvested based on strict ripeness criteria, then slowly dried on raised beds in order to achieve 11% moisture content. Each coffee producing family then delivers the coffee to their respective cooperative, ASOPEP or ASCI’SP, where it is taken to a centralised hub for storage (“El Faro”).
Cofinet’s quality analysts travel every week to El Faro, where they conduct a physical and sensory analysis of each lot presented by the cooperatives (which can range from 30 to 60 sacks) to check that the profile of each lot meets the El Indio profile. By continuing to work together over the years, Cofinet and these cooperatives have been able to support the families to standardise their production processes, ensuring consistency across the coffee lots.
We purchased this coffee from Cofinet. The coffee was harvested between October and December 2023 and landed in the UK in May 2024.
It is one of two coffees that we have purchased from Cofinet this year. We wanted to work with Cofinet given our shared values and approach to sourcing coffee. Cofinet not only produces coffee on its own family’s farms, but also connects other smallholder producers with speciality roasters, and supports those producers to learn how to better grow and process their own coffee cherries. Doing so helps such producers add value to their coffee and, in turn, increase their income. They are also taking steps to maintain the biodiversity of the region, having set up a nursery for native plants which they share with producers for free.
Cofinet directly pays El Faro for the El Indio lot, which in turn pays the two cooperatives, ASOPEP and ASCI’SP. The cooperatives are responsible for making payments to their members for their coffee. The price is standardized for the El Indio lot, which means that it is not subject to the fluctuations in the C-price for coffee (the price at which coffee trades on New York’s Intercontinental Exchange). As a result, the producers are not impacted by any drops in the C-price.
For further details on the prices below visit our Transparency Page.
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