In March, I had the opportunity to visit our producing partners in Colombia. This was the first time I’ve ever visited a coffee farm, and as a long time coffee roaster, it was a dream come true. I met producers whose work I’ve come to admire from afar, processed coffee cherries by hand in a workshop, and explored several vibrant small towns in the rural mountains of Antioquia. Along the way, I connected with several other coffee roasters from all over the US who were along for the same ride.
Unblended Coffee hosted us for this trip. You can read more about their mission in this post here. In short, their whole business is oriented towards building up the brands of coffee producers in the country. They offer coffee producers the tools and reliable business they need to experiment and hone their craft, moving them through a pipeline that gives them exposure in the international coffee market.
We were there to observe and participate in their Development Camp. A recurring event which brings producers together from all over the country to experiment with new processes and learn from each other. We participated in the camp in two ways: by judging the Development Challenge and by participating in a fermentation workshop.
Development Challenge
Arriving late at night in the Medellin Airport, an Uber took me down a winding road to my hotel. The city of Medellin feels like a stadium. The urban landscape fills a valley and climbs its way up the mountains that surround the city on all sides. Cloud cover often hung low, and intermittent rain was constant throughout the trip.
The trip officially began the next morning in Unblended’s main office, a top of the line cupping lab across the street from a gorgeous old church. There, we (the participating roasters) judged the Development Challenge. In this challenge, the producers in the camp each submitted some of their newest experiments, and the winners of the challenge were awarded a trip to World of Coffee Panama.
We judged these coffees in two categories: standard varietals and exotic varietals. Truly, every one of the submissions had a lot to offer. Any of them I’d consider for some use in the coffee program here at Solid State.
In the end, we chose our two winners:
Traditional Varietal Category: Oscar Osorio - "Orange Honey" - Anaerobic fermentation after depulping with added lemongrass and orange peel.
Exotic Varietal Category: Juan Camilo Trujillo - Chiroso Natural — This one tasted like a freshly baked lemon bar. We tried it multiple days in a row, and it blew my mind every time.
With our task done, we left Medellin for a three hour drive to Jardin, a small town in rural Antioquia. We ended the day eating at Bon Appetit, a small restaurant owned by a Russian couple that served Italian, Indian and Thai food out of a kitchen smaller than the one in my Manhattan apartment. We ordered from all over the menu, and everything tasted incredible.
Fermentation Workshop
From the town of Jardín, we rode to Carolina Ramirez’s coffee farm. Ramirez has been working on her parents' farm since the pandemic, when she fell in love with specialty coffee. Now, she collaborates with her mother on selection and processing, and the two of them produce some incredible coffees.
In fact, we're currently offering a washed process from Ramirez in store right now!
We rode on gigantic trucks, the only vehicles that could make the trip through the narrow dirt path. Some of the riders climbed to the top of the truck and watched the mountains pass from up high. I chickened out and stayed under the covered canopy the whole time.
After a morning of introductions at the farm, we were organized into groups, each with five or six producers and one or two roasters, and given a challenge. We were given a bucket filled with 20kg of coffee cherries. We had to come up with a strategy to process them. The strategy had to have a clear hypothesis, as well as be scalable.
Our group opted for a honey process, meaning we depulped the cherries but left them to ferment before washing the mucus off the seeds. We put the seeds in a fermentation tank along with some fresh lime, lemon leaves and cane sugar. This is a process called co-fermentation, where the coffee is literally fermented alongside additives.
Throughout the activity, I watched the experts do their craft, all the while they sent me on one busy task after another, which I was happy to do. Each group’s submission had to ferment for at least a few days. Then, they will have to be dried for the next few weeks. Meaning I’ll get to taste the final results back here in New York once they are ready.
I’ve heard processes like this described probably a hundred times, but there was something remarkable in getting to see it happen in front of me. We literally picked our co-ferments by grabbing the fresh fruit growing around the farm. We washed and blended the fruits, then just… dumped them in the tank. No frills or fancy equipment. I think specialty coffee in the States can feel very clinical and technical. Roasters label bags with as much detailed information as they can. I believe that’s important, for transparency and the curious-minded. Though I wonder if the technical label can make us lose sight of how natural and grounded this process is.
Party Time
The final day was spent in a town called Andes, close to Jardín and Carolina’s farm. We announced the winners of the Development Challenge and watched a lecture about fertilization. Admittedly, the whole lecture was in Spanish, meaning I gleaned very little. Fortunately, a cool cat was wandering around that I could pet.
After that, a small group of us wandered through Andes. Stopping through local haunts along the way, eating fruit and street food. Later that night, the whole crew met back at a coffee shop called Cabresto, which had a private outdoor patio where we danced late into the night.
The next day, we returned to Medellin and parted ways. I loved every single day of the trip, but by then, I was excited to get back home to New York.
Building Community
If you put a bunch of coffee professionals in a room together and ask what they love most about the industry (yes, I’ve been in many such rooms), someone is invariably going to say they love the community.
It’s kind of cheesy, but there’s a lot of truth to that statement.
It was the first time I’ve ever been to a coffee farm, to Colombia, to South America at all. Still, even in a brand new space, there was so much familiarity around me. I was there with colleagues I’d known forever. I met producers for the first time, whose coffee I’d been drinking for years. Even some of the other roasters on the trip represented coffee companies from my hometown in Georgia.
This work has allowed me to cross paths with so many people I never would have met otherwise, and now it’s brought me to entirely new parts of the world altogether. I flew back to LaGuardia with gratitude for the opportunity to go on such an amazing trip. I can hope that it is the first of many such trips.
Enough of my own self-actualization, what does this mean for Solid State?
Trips like this only make our coffee program stronger. Every great coffee you’ve ever tasted was great because of the producer. When roasters and producers can meet face to face, it fosters more common ground and language. We can learn about each other’s needs and build lasting business relationships.
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Interested in trying an Unblended coffee? We have two available right now!
- Carolina Ramirez Washed // Produced by Caro herself at the very farm I visited!
- Gesha Natural // Produced by Yessica and Diego Parra, a brother/sister duo who I got the chance to meet during the trip.
We also have two more Unblended coffees arriving later this year: the Development Lot and Sebastian Ramirez's Peach Co-Ferment.
