Category: Green Beans > South America

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Colombian Huila - Oporapa Micro-region

Sweet Maria's Coffee

Some introductory comments are needed: a long time ago some chump decided that better coffee came from larger coffee beans. Colombia was in the audience that night, took it all in, and developed a system of pooling all coffees together in lots based on bean size. Thus we came up with Supremo and Excelso in the better grades of Colombian (there are also UGQ and FAQ which are seductive acronyms for Usual Good Quality and Fair Average Quality, but those don't concern us here). Being a coffee behemoth and slow to change, Colombia has been reticent to change the system that they impose on farmers, exporters, and roasters until recently, although it makes no sense. Bigger coffee seeds from bigger coffee cherries don't mean better flavor, as much as a bigger cup of coffee tastes better (the 7-Eleven logic?) What does make coffee quality improve? Besides good standards of farming and preparation, it is the unique region, the soil, the altitude, the weather, and the care the farm puts into the plant. So as a new direction, one that makes sense for Colombia, we have these new micro-regional lots. (Estate coffees rarely make sense in Colombia because each farm is too small to produce a lot that can be milled distinct, and shipped separately). So we could call these "micro-pooled" lots. Using cupping techniques (mostly with a mobile cupping lab) small regions are identified that have special cup character. It might be centered around a town, it might be one particular hill or valley. Size is ignored to a greater degree, but the coffee is carefully prepared to remove defective seeds. In this case, the coffee is from the South-Central district of Huila, from the area adjacent to the small town of Oporapa. Altitudes here hover around 1600 meters, making this a very high altitude Colombian coffee. This cup is sturdy from start to finish, with exceptional intensity for a Huila coffee. It has above-average body, a good weight to the mouthfeel, and the aromas are brown bread and (it sounds bad but it isn't) fresh leather. There's a fruitiness in the cup, papaya-like, with a touch of winey East African character. The cup has pungency, good roasty bittersweetness, and a long aftertaste. Balanced, and (a word I return to for Oporapa)...sturdy.

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For more information on this product, visit Sweet Maria's Coffee's website.