Words by Tom Avery
8 min read
The road up to Finca El Mirador takes three hours from Pitalito, the last forty minutes on a track that turns to mud by mid-afternoon. We arrive in time for lunch, as we have every October since 2014.
Don Hernán Ramírez planted his first coffee here in 1989, on a slope his father used for cattle. Today the farm covers eleven hectares, split into small lots by variety and altitude, and his daughter Laura runs the wet mill.
We cup every lot on the farm’s patio, side by side with the family. This year three stood out:
Lot 4, Caturra, washed: red grape and cacao
Lot 7, Pink Bourbon, natural: plum and hibiscus
Lot 9, Castillo, honey: brown sugar and orange
We paid $6.20 per kilo of green coffee for this year’s lots, more than double the commodity price. It is the only way the family can keep picking ripe cherry by hand, and the only way we keep getting coffee this good.
Lot 4 arrives at the roastery in January. You will find it on the bar at both cafés, and in the shop as Huila, Colombia.
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