Types of Single Origin Coffee | Single Origin Coffee Beans | Colombia Danubio Estate Caturra

Product Information

Name: Colombia Huila El Danubio Caturra Natural LOT#2

Flavor notes: wine-soaked cherries, dried figs, longan honey, a red-wine mouthfeel, deep and substantial, with a caramel-syrup sweet finish.

Award record:

• 2014 Colombia Cup of Excellence — 10th place
• 2006 Colombia Cup of Excellence — 15th place

Origin Details

Country: Colombia

Region: Huila, Planades area

Estate: El Danubio

Variety: Caturra

Altitude: average 1,800-1,900 meters

Grade: N/A

Process: natural

Harvest period: 30% from April to June, 70% from September to January

Certification: N/A

Introduction

Huila lies in Colombia's southwest, where coffee grows on the canyon slopes formed where the country's great cordilleras converge. The town of San Agustín, through which the Los Naranjos River flows, produces the region's finest coffee. The riverside scenery is beautiful — abundant flowers and plants provide habitat for butterflies and hummingbirds — and this area is one of Colombia's strongholds of fine coffee.

Many smallholders here produce specialty coffee in micro-batches with distinctive regional character. In recent years, as the international market has placed ever more weight on quality, production has shifted toward micro-regions: dozens of small farmers pool their individual harvests into a single micro-batch for sale, which makes quality control easier. Lot-by-lot cupping then singles out exceptional small-farm coffees from specific micro-regions.

This micro-batch is a naturally processed Caturra, LOT#2, from El Danubio in Huila. Estate owner Juan Rodriguez bought the small 10-hectare farm five years ago with savings from coffee work plus some loans.

El Danubio sits on the mountainside in southern Huila, near the border with Tolima, at an average altitude of 1,800-1,900 meters. Rodriguez is only 44 years old and had just a fourth-grade education, but he has worked hard to learn coffee cultivation — and back-to-back rankings in the 2006 and 2014 Colombia Cup of Excellence competitions prove his real ability. Because his farm is small, he can manage every detail personally.

Colombia Coffee Overview

The Andes enter Colombia from the west and split into three cordilleras — Western, Central, and Eastern — with the Cauca and Magdalena rivers running through the lowland plains toward the Caribbean Sea.

Colombia is one of the world's largest producers of quality coffee, growing washed-processed Arabica, and its traditional dark-roast coffee has a strong, memorable flavor.

Coffee first arrived in Colombia in 1808, brought by a priest from the French Antilles via Venezuela. Today the country ranks as the world's third-largest coffee producer, after Brazil and Vietnam, with an annual output of 12 million 60-kilogram bags against Brazil's 31 million.

How much coffee matters to Colombia is clear from one example: every vehicle entering the country must be sprayed and disinfected, to keep out diseases that could harm the coffee trees.

Major producing regions include Huila (San Agustín), Nariño, Tolima, Popayán (Cauca), Valle del Cauca, Meta, Antioquia (Medellín), Magdalena (Sierra Nevada), Boyacá, and Santander (Bucaramanga).

Colombia has roughly 700 million documented coffee trees, about 66% grown with modern cultivation methods on plantations and the rest on traditionally run small farms. The main varieties are Caturra, Colombia, Typica, Bourbon, Maragogype, and Tabi. More than 500,000 farmers run farms and cooperatives of every size across 590 municipalities and 14 major coffee regions; some 2 million Colombians live off coffee cultivation, which contributes 12.5% of national GDP.

About FrontStreet Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee is a roastery in Guangzhou — a small shop with a wide range of beans, famous names and lesser-known ones alike — which also runs an online store at https://shop104210103.taobao.com

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this naturally processed Huila Caturra has you in the mood for more Colombian coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's washed Huila daily bean is the classic starting point. Huila, in the hills of the southern Central Cordillera above 1500 meters, is Colombia's most celebrated specialty region, where the country's great rivers converge and water is never scarce. Roasted medium-dark, it brings out black chocolate and nutty sweetness with moderate oils and a full body — at home in a pour-over or French press, and equally good in a moka pot or espresso machine for americano or latte.

For a taste of Colombia's new wave, try FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Sidra from Finca La Línea. Colombian coffee used to be washed almost universally, but anaerobic fermentation has changed that: the coffee ferments in a sealed, pressure-resistant stainless tank where temperature, time, and pH are precisely controlled in a low- or zero-oxygen environment. FrontStreet's Sidra is an anaerobic natural — the oxygen-free fermentation unlocks extra tropical fruit, and roasted medium-light it delivers passion fruit, grape, apricot, and dried-fruit complexity as pour-over, cold brew, drip bag, or moka pot coffee.

And for everyday espresso, FrontStreet Coffee's Premium Blend Espresso combines the creamy nuttiness of Brazilian coffee with Colombia's dark chocolate bitterness. It extracts a fine golden crema, makes a rich, silky latte, is forgiving enough for beginners, and serves as a dependable base for americano, cappuccino, and mocha.