The first stop was the office of COFCO's international coffee business in Bogota for a cup test.
Colombia is currently the world's largest producer of washed Arabica, the second-largest producer of Arabica, and the third-largest producer of coffee, with annual production equal to about one-third that of Brazil.
But this huge producer is not, as I had imagined, a country with too many large, commercialized estates that produce on a large scale. On the contrary, Colombia is 95% small haciendas, a huge number of them, and most of them are planted in areas of less than 5 hectares, almost entirely by hand, in the form of small farmers, family trade, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but undoubtedly allows us to drink a more varied qualities or differences.
Compared to Guatemala and Bolivia, where I went before, Colombia's overall terrain is relatively flat, high in the west and low in the east, with two-thirds of the Amazon alluvial plain in the east, and three Cordilleras running north-south in the east, which are basically where Colombia's fine coffee is grown.
The mountain ranges are undulating, running north and south, with different soils, overlapping with a very rich microclimate, forming a number of large and small production areas, can grow more than 80 different flavors of coffee, but also makes Colombia almost any time of the year, there are places where coffee is being harvested ripe fruit.
The three most recognizable regions for Chinese enthusiasts are located in the southern part of the mountain range (Huilan, Nari?a and Cauca).
Like Guatemala, the export of Colombian coffee is regulated by a specialized body, the National Association of Coffee Producers of Colombia (FNC), which was established in 1927 with the aim of improving the quality of life of the growers and the quality of the coffee; it also has the responsibility of regulating the quality of the coffee exported from Colombia, ensuring that it meets the standards required for a coffee with a reputation worthy of the country.
The next morning, we went to the "Coffee Export Show 2018" in Bogota .
On the floor, we total*** tested more than 30 beans that would be up for bidding that afternoon. Needless to say, these beans were all excellent, each with their own characteristics , triggering a strong desire to possess them. As we had other plans for the afternoon, we asked our friends in China to do the bidding for us. After some discussion, we left the show.
In the afternoon, we heard the good news that our friend had beaten the Japanese and Korean competitors and got us the beans we wanted, a super pineapple flavor from the Cauca region! And this year's Colombian bidder was in the hands of his Chinese counterpart, so congratulations!
On the third day, a staff member from the COFCO International office took us on a sightseeing tour of Bogota.
The tour area is mainly focused on the Bolivar Plaza, which is said to have been built by order of the Spanish royal family during the colonial period.
The Capitol, built in 1876, the old baroque church, the National Museum, the Palace of Justice, etc., are all located in this square.
The Colombian government seems to be very hands-on, with the Presidential Palace located near the square, just down the street from the lively tourist area.
When we were about to leave and waiting for the Uber, 3 waves of Colombians came to take a picture with us, probably because they think Asian faces are rare.
In the middle of the day, when we were having coffee at a cafe, there was a street performer in front of the entrance. She was transgender and we sat in the doorway and listened to her sing, and the more we listened, the more we felt, and some of the audience couldn't help but dance. The street performer invited me to dance on stage, so I went up and danced with her.
A day of shopping down, I think Bogota is also a rich artistic city, generally more developed, modernized, and this point and Bolivia, Guatemala and other South American countries have a clear difference. (But I personally feel that some South American countries, the more developed the big city may be more dangerous, not like the small city people that simple and friendly.
On the fourth day, we flew from Bogota to Neiva, the capital of the Huilan region, and then took a four-hour bus ride to Pitalito, another city under Huilan's jurisdiction; along the way, we saw vast rice paddies spread out on both sides of the highway. I was surprised to see rice fields along the highway.
Pitalito is an important coffee producer in Huilan province, with coffee farms of all sizes radiating from the center.
COFCO has set up a dry processing plant in Pitalito, which is smaller than the one in Brazil, but no less specialized.
When I attended the cup test, I realized that their cup test was not as rough as Brazil's; one of the things that impressed me was the way the staff fished for dregs with one hand, which was fast and precise, and completely amazed me!
However, the beans from the Cymbidium region were even more amazing! 6 rounds of 38 beans to measure down, we drank Yega, Kenya, and even Panama BOP type of flavor, everyone's flavor description, including jasmine, rose, passion fruit, blackberry, orange, apricot peach, small tomatoes, white wine, green tea and so on! It really refreshed my opinion of Columbian beans!
The porters at the COFCO plant were equally admirable to me. 70 kilograms of raw beans are easily lifted by one person, and two people can complete an assembly line to move the raw beans, and can stack the beans high and neatly!
Fifth, the depth of the coffee estate tour?
On the fifth day, we went to 3 haciendas centered in the city of Pitalito (we wanted to go to more, but time constraints limited us to 3). We were guided by Liliana, a local bean hunter, who is both a long-time buyer for COFCO in Pitalito and a technical advisor to the local coffee farmers. She has provided a lot of help to the coffee farmers and has built a close relationship and friendship with them.
Columbian coffee is basically planted on the mountain belt, so once you enter the coffee planting area, the road immediately becomes rugged, and the mountain road is often close to the edge of the cliffs, but Liliana's driving skills are excellent, and she drives one-handedly along the edge of the cliffs with ease and a smile, which makes her the best female driver I've ever seen. Of course, it's a testament to the number of times Liliana has been in the mountains.
The first hacienda we arrived at was called El Diviso, and the owners laughed at the fact that they were a relatively young hacienda, with about 30 years of farming history. But they've actually won a COE award.
This is a typical family-style small farm, consisting of a small house + planting area; the house is very clean, and around the planting of a variety of flowers and plants, beautifully dressed. The slope behind the house is a coffee planting area, with varieties of pink bourbon as the main species, and the coffee trees are planted under the banana trees to provide shade. The manor is also planted with South American fruit avocado, dragon fruit and so on.
The owner of the estate took us to visit the coffee planting area behind the house, where pink coffee cherries are interspersed with a small number of green and blue fruits. It turns out that the coffee cherries on the same branch are not always ripe at the same time, so they hand-pick the ripe cherries in several batches, while the unripe ones remain on the branch and are picked again when they are ripe.
During this time, Liliana pulls out an instrument and pinches the cherries and applies the juice to the instrument to check the sugar content of the cherries, and says she only buys coffee with a sugar content of 25% or more.
We also took a look at the way the haciendas dry their beans. They lay a fine mesh on the boards in the attic to provide airflow, lay the beans flat, and then build a small, relatively closed shed with film to protect them from rain and moisture. Due to the Colombian climate, it is always wet and rainy here, and it is difficult to do the sun treatment, so the washing treatment is the mainstream here. Almost every hacienda has its own small processing equipment, which can independently complete the de-pulping and washing of their own coffee cherries.
El Diviso has a micro-processing station, a small room that basically consists of a small machine and a fermentation tank for washing, which is also very clean.
The second hacienda is called Buena Vista (a few days ago in Bolivia, I visited a hacienda with the same name.) Buena Vista is a Spanish word that is often used in various countries in South America, and is usually translated domestically as Hacienda Vision/Buena Vista. (In fact, it's a bit like a mouthful and named, so we gave the name an alternative name - Alfredo Hacienda).
This manor is very famous in the local area, the scale is also large; seems to have won several COE awards! The owner of the estate is a very good planner, with detailed plans posted on the walls of the house.
The back of the house is the farm, and it can be seen that the focus on scientific planting, good at rational use of space.
Manor planted a number of varieties, according to different varieties of strict planning planting blocks, management is very scientific and fine.
The manor is ingenious to set up a double roof on the house, the inner layer is a platform roof, and the outer layer is a removable roof (slope structure, perfect drainage of rainwater), which is moved in parallel by rollers. When the sloping roof is removed, the terrace can be used for drying coffee. When it rains, the sloping roof moves back to its original position, perfectly covering the coffee bean drying table!
During the tour of the planting area, Liliana took out a new tool - the coffee cherry counting disk, with 100 holes***, Liliana randomly grabbed coffee cherries out of the sack until the 100 holes were filled, in order to check the rate of passing the counting of the coffee cherries.
After the ripe fruit is picked, the estate will also conduct a second hand-selection of coffee cherries to eliminate over-ripe cherries, in order to maintain a clean and pure quality. Cup test found that the estate's coffee super! Grade! Sweet!
At this estate, I recognized a goddaughter. A very enthusiastic little girl (her mom is the local champion of hand brewing) who kept bringing me food, teaching me Spanish, and asking me how to say kittens and puppies and all kinds of other animals in Chinese.
The third hacienda is called La Pelota, which is Spanish for ball (or boomerang), but for some reason it is translated into Chinese as Round Mound Hacienda.
Round Hill Manor is farther away from the first two estates, located in the town of San Agustin (San Agustin); elevation 1900m, a total area of 5 hectares, planted with sugar cane, plantain, mulberry, etc., of which the coffee planting area of 3 hectares, containing more than 1800 trees pink bourbon species, annual output of about 480Kg, accounting for about 24% of the total production of the estate's coffee.
This estate is more famous in China, especially for its Pink Bourbon. The 6th place bean in the CBC competition last year was the Pink Bourbon from here. And Pan Zhimin even represented China in the World Barista Championship with this estate's Pink Bourbon.
A few of the beans I picked up at the COFCO Columbus plant included the Pink Bourbon from Round Hill.
Here, I finally understood where the fermented, wine-like flavor of the washed Colombian beans came from these days. It turns out that some coffee estates will pick the day of the coffee ripe fruit sealed in a bag and smothered for 24 hours, and then stripped of the pulp, with mucus into the fermentation tank to rest for 36 hours. So the clean, washed Colombian beans end up with the fermented flavor of the sun. In fact, this is a treatment that has only become popular in Colombia in the last two years. The super pineapple-flavored beans from the Cauca region that we bid on at the Colombian Coffee Export Show were probably treated the same way.
During the day's visit to the hacienda, I realized that the farmers Liliana spoke to seemed to be predominantly female. Perhaps it's because the men on the smallholder plantations tend to go out to work? But in any case, I can feel that the local women play a very important role in the Colombian coffee farming industry, and I admire them!
The day after our visit to the plantation, we took a flight out of Pitalito from the airport next to the CFS plant. That was the end of the Colombia Bean Hunt.
Looking back on these days in Colombia, I realize that Colombian coffee has a lot of potential and has really changed my mind. In addition to being clean, balanced and soft, there are many beans with outstanding floral and fruity flavors that can be compared to the Essex family. I've always felt that the Columbian beans are not as good as Yega, Kenya and Panama in terms of flavor, but in addition to my own negligence, it is also possible that most of the good beans here have been taken by Europe and the United States and Japan first.
Friends, it's time to reacquaint yourself with Colombian coffee! Expect a few coffees from Colombia that I've selected this time.
1. Robin's Journey of Origin: Brazil
2. Robin's Journey of Origin: Bolivia
3. Robin's Journey of Origin: Guatemala