The History, Culture, and Stories of Colombia's La Esperanza Estate Premium Single-Origin Coffee Beans

Coffee is a craft best learned by tasting widely and comparing notes with other drinkers.

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombia La Esperanza Estate Premium Single Origin Bean's History, Culture, and Stories

Colombia's La Esperanza Estate hand-screens out defective beans at a ratio of about 4%, and roasts to a light roast (city) with a weight loss ratio of 14%. Empty shells and defective beans account for 6%. The fresh grassy aroma released when picking out defective beans feels like walking across a field after rain. Raising the roasting temperature slightly and using a steeper heating curve preserves more aroma and more of the sweet-sour variation, and that is the right call for La Esperanza Estate.

Light Roast City (Fragrant)

A rare dark plum acidity for Colombian coffee, never astringent but bright and delicate. The mouthfeel is smooth, without the traditional rich Colombian style, instead recalling Costa Rican coffee, and the acidity transforms quickly into plum-like sweetness.

Dark Roast (General C)

Raisin aroma forms the background. The flavour circles around fruit and maple syrup, with a fruity milk sweetness spread across the tongue without feeling especially heavy. As the coffee cools, the whole impression moves toward deeper, rounder, sweeter notes.

La Esperanza Estate is without question one of Colombia's top-tier estates.

Its subsidiary estates have won the Best of Panama championship (2008) and the runner-up place (2009). In 2012, three products took an incredible 2nd, 3rd and 7th place among the top ten in the SCAA Coffee of the Year. In the recently announced GFA (Good Food Award), La Esperanza Estate was also the only winning estate outside the Ethiopia, Kenya and Panama regions.

As for high-scoring records above 95 points on Coffee Review, they are dazzlingly numerous, so many that the editor gave up trying to summarise them all.

La Esperanza Estate has four farms: Esperanza, Las Margaritas, Cerro Azul and Potosi.

• Won the Best of Panama championship (2008) and runner-up (2009)
• In 2012, three products took 2nd, 3rd and 7th place among the top ten in the SCAA Coffee of the Year
• In the recently announced GFA (Good Food Award), La Esperanza Estate was the only winning estate outside the Ethiopia, Kenya and Panama regions
• 2014 WBC Runner-up Competition Bean
• 2012, 2013 US Brewers Cup two-time Champion Competition Bean
• 2014 Coffee Review Annual Best 16
• 2014 Coffee Review Annual Best 25
• 2013 Coffee Review Annual Best 08
• October 2014 Coffee Review 95 points
• April 2014 Coffee Review 95 points
• August 2013 Coffee Review 96 points
• November 2012 Coffee Review 96 points

Product Name	FrontStreet Coffee Colombia La Esperanza Estate Coffee
Country	Colombia
Region	Valle de Cauca
Altitude	1,400-1,650m
Variety	Pacamara
Processing	Natural
Flavor Description	The dry aroma exudes rich wine and floral notes. Sipped, it offers the sweet-and-sour flavours of pineapple, longan, black plum, blackcurrant, passion fruit, blueberry and grape. This is a tropical fruit wine - lively, with bright acidity

Colombia La Esperanza Estate Café Granja La Esperanza

Café Granja La Esperanza is made up of six farms belonging to the Herrera family, located in El Valle del Cauca and Cundinamarca. The owner is Rigoberto Herrera.

The Colombian farms include La Esperanza, Cerro Azul, Potosi, Las Margaritas and Hawaii, covering eight microclimate zones.

La Esperanza, Cerro Azul, Potosi and Las Margaritas all sit in Trujillo, in the Valle del Cauca, a western province of Colombia that faces the Pacific.

Trujillo lies on the eastern mountain range on relatively flat terrain, west of the Cauca River, at altitudes between 1,000 and 3,000 meters. Warm air from the valley meets cold air from the Pacific, creating the average temperatures and rainfall that suit coffee cultivation.

The soil in this area is mostly volcanic ash and organic matter. Phosphorus content, however, is generally low, so Café Granja La Esperanza also mixes its own natural fertilisers to keep the coffee trees healthy and protect bean quality.

Interestingly, Granja La Esperanza also grows a coffee tree called Laurina, a Bourbon variety that naturally carries low caffeine. Its fruit, though, is more fragile than ordinary coffee cherries and yields are low.

La Esperanza farm grows Caturra, Geisha, Moka, Bourbon (including red, yellow and Tekizik), Laurina, Pacamara, San Bernardo and Pache.

Altitude Comparison:

• La Esperanza: 1400-1700 meters
• Cerro Azul: 1700-2000 meters
• Potosi: 1400-2000 meters
• Las Margaritas: 1400-1800 meters

Area Comparison:

• La Esperanza: 34 hectares
• Cerro Azul: 18 hectares
• Potosi: 52 hectares
• Las Margaritas: 34 hectares

Café Granja La Esperanza's Geisha Story:

In 2005 the Herrera family rented La Cardeida Estate in Boquete, Panama, right beside La Esmeralda, the farm famous for Geisha. Botanist Hernando Tapasco initially helped with experimental cultivation of the Geisha variety, and the cultivation team spent two years in Panama learning the characteristics of Geisha. In 2008 they succeeded at "The Best of Panama", where La Cardeida's Geisha took the championship. In 2012, at the SCAA Coffee of the Year, their washed Geishas from Cerro Azul, Las Margaritas and Buenos Aires placed 2nd, 3rd and 7th respectively.

La Esperanza also grows Geisha, including a rare certified organic Geisha (Geisha organica). Every cherry is hand-picked, and workers harvest more frequently than usual to protect quality.

Other Estate Characteristics:

Cerro Azul

Cerro Azul sits beside La Esperanza at higher altitude. Sunlight is strong, but cloud and mist arrive at sunrise and sunset, reducing evaporation and cooling the site. The valley position turns Pacific sea breezes into colourful cloud, and combined with volcanic soil and abundant rain it suits Geisha ideally. About seven varieties and roughly 45,000 Geisha trees are planted here, yet the naming is strict: only the 5,000 to 7,000 trees that express Cerro Azul's character may carry the Cerro Azul name. Those considered AAA reserve are only 2 of the 7 varieties, and they must grow at 1,800-2,000 meters.

The coffee is fully washed with 16 hours of fermentation, then moisture is removed in drying machines before sun-drying on raised beds. Harvest workers here must complete five months of training.

Colombia's climate gives coffee a genuine "natural pasture". Colombian coffee trees are grown mainly in the Andes on steep slopes around 1,300 meters, where the annual temperature is approximately 18°C and annual rainfall 2,000-3,000 mm, at 1°-11°15' N latitude and 72°-78° W longitude, with some areas rising above 2,000 meters. The particular combination of latitude, altitude, soil, plant origins and Colombian varieties, the climate patterns created by the double paths of the tropical convergence zone, the terrain and light that change through the day, favourable year-round temperatures, well-distributed rainfall, and common practices such as selective harvesting and washing and drying all suit coffee extremely well, with a mild climate, humid air and the possibility of harvesting year-round.

Colombia's coffee varieties are mainly Arabica. The plants are small trees or large shrubs, 5-8 meters tall, usually branching heavily at the base; old branches are greyish-white with swollen nodes, and young branches are hairless and flattened. The leaves are thin and leathery, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, 6-14 cm long and 3.5-5 cm wide, with long acuminate tips 10-15 mm long, a cuneate or slightly obtuse base, rarely rounded, entire or shallowly wavy, hairless on both sides, with or without small pores in the vein axils beneath; the midrib is prominent on both leaf surfaces and there are 7-13 lateral veins per side; petioles are 8-15 mm long; stipules are broadly triangular, with conical long tips or awn tips on the young branches and often acute on old branches, 3-6 mm long. Several cymes cluster in the leaf axils, each inflorescence carrying 2-5 flowers with no peduncle or a very short one; the flowers are fragrant, with pedicels 0.5-1 mm long; the bract bases are somewhat connate and dimorphic, with two broadly triangular ones of nearly equal length and width and two lanceolate ones twice as long as wide, leaf-like; the calyx tube is cylindrical, 2.5-3 mm long, and the calyx limb is truncate or has five small teeth; the corolla is white, its length varying by variety, generally 10-18 mm, usually five-lobed at the apex and rarely four- or six-lobed, with lobes often longer than the tube and usually obtuse; the anthers extend beyond the corolla tube, 6-8 mm long; the style is 12-14 mm long with a two-lobed stigma, 3-4 mm long. The berries are broadly elliptical when ripe and red, 12-16 mm long and 10-12 mm in diameter, with a hard, membranous exocarp and a fleshy, sweet mesocarp; the seeds are convex on the dorsal surface and flat on the ventral surface with a longitudinal groove, 8-10 mm long and 5-7 mm in diameter. The flowering period is March-April.

Las Margaritas

A little further from Cerro Azul, in Colombia's central mountain range, part of the Andes. Whatever the measure - soil, altitude or weather - conditions are optimal, which is why so many rare varieties grow here, among them Pacamara, Red Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, Tekisik and Mokka. Besides Geisha there is also Sudan Rume, with copper-coloured leaves. This tree resists many coffee diseases and is mostly used for hybrid grafting. Its cup is said to be no lesser than Geisha, but growth is less stable, so it has never been mass-propagated.

Las Margaritas' Geisha requires 14 hours of fermentation, is fully washed and then fully sun-dried. Because the climate here is humid, other beans that rely entirely on sun-drying are relatively few.

Consider the appearance of three coffee seedlings: Geisha, Sudan Rume and Laurina.

Potosi

The farm faces Las Margaritas. Coffee cultivation here began in the era of Rigoberto Herrera's great-grandfather, so the varieties are mainly Colombian and Caturra.

Caturra coffee trees.

Beyond coffee quality, the estate also takes environmental protection and employee welfare seriously, applying a range of methods to improve skills, the environment and productivity.

Colombia

Population: 47,073,000

Colombia has clearly defined growing regions and each produces diverse, impressive coffee. Whether you prefer a round, heavy mouthfeel or a refreshing fruit character - or something in between - the answer is most likely Colombian. Geography divides the country in a way that makes it easy to see how much the coffees of a region share, so if you like one region's coffee you will probably like the others from it too. Colombian coffee trees give two harvests a year, the main crop and a second crop locally called "mitaca".

CAUCA

Cauca is best known for coffee grown around Inza and for the Meseta de Popayán around the city of Popayán. The high altitude provides favourable growing conditions, and its proximity to the equator and the surrounding mountains shield the coffee from Pacific humidity and the southern trade winds, giving a very stable climate year-round. The region's coffee also grows in significant volcanic soil. Historically there is a single rainy season, from October to December each year.

• Altitude: 1,700-2,100m
• Harvest: March-June (main crop), November-December (mitaca crop)

TOLIMA

Tolima sits in one of Colombia's notorious FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebel strongholds, which held control until recently. The region has suffered years of conflict, making access difficult. High-quality coffee here comes from smallholders working very small plots and is exported through cooperatives.

• Altitude: 1,200-1,900m
• Harvest: March-June (main crop), October-December (mitaca crop)
• Varieties: 9% Typica, 74% Caturra, 17% Castillo

NARINO

Some of Colombia's highest-quality coffees grow in Nariño, and they are genuinely stunning and complex. Growing coffee in the high-altitude areas here is demanding, and the trees can be vulnerable to leaf rust, but Nariño lies close enough to the equator for the climate to suit cultivation. Of Nariño's 40,000 producers the vast majority are smallholders, each farming less than 2 hectares (4.4 acres). Many form groups and institutions to support one another and to work with the FNC. In fact the average farm is under 1 hectare (2.2 acres), and only 37 producers in the region own more than 5 hectares (11 acres).

• Altitude: 1,500-2,300m (4,900-7,500ft)
• Harvest: April-June
• Varieties: 54% Typica, 29% Caturra, 17% Castillo

HUILA

Huila combines excellent soil with geographical advantages for coffee. Some of the most complex, fruit-forward Colombian coffees come from here. The region has more than 70,000 coffee growers covering over 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres).

• Altitude: 1,250-2,000m
• Harvest: September-December (main crop), April-May (mitaca crop)
• Main Varieties: 11% Typica, 75% Caturra, 14% Castillo

Colombia - La Esperanza Estate

Colombian coffee shed its image of being inferior and ordinary long ago, and recent competitions have helped people understand it better. Good coffee usually comes from excellent estates and from small, special regions such as Nariño. Production in these places is genuinely limited. Before the competitions, Colombian coffee was graded on bean size, but that says nothing about quality - "bigger beans are better" is an outdated system. In fact excellent beans from small-production estates and cooperatives are generally smaller, rounder and more complete. That is the mainstream of Colombian coffee today: quality is what guarantees the price.

Colombian coffee is widely sold and widely used mainly because its flavour is mild and pure and it is very easy to brew well, which makes it a favourite in every home and the best companion for desserts and cakes. With Colombian coffee you do not need to visit a coffee bar to enjoy its aroma, whether as a simple black coffee or in any number of coffee recipes.

Colombia's southwestern Huila region is an excellent coffee-producing area, along with Nariño and Tolima. Every year almost the entire top ten of Colombian coffee competitions comes from these three regions, and they too are mostly made up of smallholders on small plots. La Esperanza Estate is located in Huila. It is not an individual or family farm but a collection of coffee growers selling collectively under the La Esperanza name. The estate's coffee is spread through forests at 1,400-1,650 meters, with cherries hand-picked when fully ripe. The growers insist on good growing environments and persistently control green bean quality. It was the championship estate in the 2007 Colombian Coffee Competition, and also took 9th, 12th and 14th places in 2008 (different growers). In November 2008, the American coffee authority Kenneth Davids, author of Coffee Review and The Complete Guide to Coffee Roasting, gave it a high score of 93 points, making it Colombia's top-tier estate.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

La Esperanza's natural Pacamara is the kind of coffee that shows best as a slow pour-over, and if you enjoy coffee from this part of Colombia, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Huila is an easy place to start. Huila province in the southern Central Cordillera is the country's best-known specialty region - a hilly, mountain-ringed landscape planted above 1,500 meters, where Colombia's most important rivers meet and bring abundant water and humidity. FrontStreet's washed Huila is roasted medium-dark, which pushes dark chocolate and nutty sweetness forward with moderate oils and a full body. It is at home as a pour-over or French press, and equally good through a moka pot or espresso machine for an Americano or a latte.

For something with more tropical fruit and a modern processing edge, FrontStreet Coffee's Frontera Estate Sidra is processed as an anaerobic natural. Colombian coffee was traditionally washed almost without exception, but recent years have brought a wave of experimental processing. Anaerobic fermentation is one of them, and although it goes by several names - some call it carbonic maceration - it simply means fermenting in a low-oxygen or oxygen-free environment, usually inside a pressure-resistant stainless steel tank where temperature, time and pH can all be controlled. The best-known forms are anaerobic natural and anaerobic washed. With the Frontera Estate Sidra the oxygen-free fermentation converts a great deal of tropical fruit aroma, and roasted medium-light it gives a complex, intensely fragrant cup of passion fruit, grape, apricot and dried fruit through pour-over, cold brew, drip bags or a moka pot.

If you want a blend rather than a single origin, FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend was built for espresso and milk drinks. It pairs the creamy nuttiness of Brazilian coffee with the dark chocolate bittersweetness of Colombian coffee, and the extraction shows fine golden crema. It is very forgiving for newcomers and makes a rich, smooth latte, while also serving as the base for an Americano, cappuccino or mocha.