Colombia Washed Finca Rosario Alto - Narciso Antonio Carlosama (2020 Crop)

Narciso Antonio Carlosama Cordoba—known as Antonio to his friends and family—is a smallholder coffee producer from the municipality of Consacá, located on the periphery of the Galeras Volcano, in the central region of the department of Nariño. Antonio is a quiet and slight man, humble to a fault, and not a big talker. He inherited his finca Rosario Alto from his late father. Rosario Alto spans a total surface area of ten hectares, two of which are currently in production. Antonio grows the Castillo, Colombia and Bourbon varieties. Antonio is 49 years-old and lives at his farm with his common law partner. He’s been working with coffee for almost 20 years and feels fortunate to be a coffee farmer for he believes the crop “always yields a reliable harvest”.

Rosario Alto is located a short eight-minute motorcycle ride from the village center, where Antonio delivers his coffee to the local Café Occidente cooperative’s point of sale. In order to do so, he must hire transport which costs around 30,000 Colombian pesos (currently about nine USD) each way. Antonio’s finca has a varied topography and its soil is mostly loam. He has two lots, one higher up, where he has 2,000 or so trees, and a lower and bigger one, with 5,000 trees. He fertilizes with whatever the cooperative suggests once a year. During the height of the harvest, he employs up to 15 pickers to from his vereda to carry out the careful, hand-selection of the cherry. He pays his workers 400 pesos per kilo harvested and sometimes, when there is less coffee, he also pays them a daily rate. After the harvest comes in from the field, he personally carries out the post-collection processing known as the beneficio. He de-pulps right away and ferments for up to two days. He then washes the beans and puts them out to dry in his parabolic greenhouse. The resulting cup has notes of sugar cane syrup, sweet passionfruit (a member of the passionfruit family that is actually first salty then sweet, and which is widely grown throughout Colombia) and coconut brittle or cocoda, a typical delicacy from the coast.