Colombia
Huila
Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia and Claudia Samboni
Finca La Loma
Laurina, aka Bourbon Pointu
Washed
November-January
Baking Spices, Dates, Syrupy, Brown Sugar
1650 meters
N/A
25kg with liner
SOLD OUT
Finca La Loma is located in Vereda Agua Negra in the Pitalito municipality of Huila. The farm has 12 hectares planted with many varieties, including Caturra, Variedad Colombia, Pink Bourbon, Pacamara, Laurina, and Geisha. The mill on the farm includes a depulper and tanks for dry fermentation. Producers Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia and Claudia Samboni have been cultivating coffee on La Loma since 2011.
In 2017, Rodrigo and his team at Aromas del Sur—the parent company for La Loma, El Progreso, and Monteblanco farms and the Aromas del Sur dry mill—constructed a cupping lab on La Loma to facilitate sample roasting, crop evaluation, and sourcing at origin. The lab overlooks the farm and the valley of Pitalito, with coffee trees and other crops dotting the rolling landscape.
The first Laurina seeds were planted on La Loma in 2014. Of the first 1100 trees, only 383 survived to produce coffee cherries. The Laurina variety, also called Bourbon Pointu for the pointed shape of the plant, like a fir tree, is susceptible to many diseases and grows slowly. The variety is a Bourbon mutation that was first noticed on the island of Réunion in 1947. Laurina is special for its naturally low caffeine content.
The team at Aromas del Sur measures the degrees Brix of all harvested cherries to designate them for the appropriate process. Laurina cherries with 24 degrees Brix were selected for Natural processing. They were float-separated to remove cherries with defects and then placed in the solar dryer for five days. Laurina Natural dries for an additional 22 days on shaded raised beds and is prepped for export at the Aromas del Sur dry mill in Pitalito.
Read more about coffee at Monteblanco and new Aromas del Sur processing innovations.
The Colombian Department of Huila is located in the southern portion of the country where the Central and Eastern ranges of the Andes mountains converge. Huila’s capital city of Neiva is dry, flat, and desert-like, markedly different from the coffee regions further south.
Centered around the city of Pitalito, Huila’s coffee farms are predominantly smallholder owned and over the past ten years have made concerted efforts to produce specialty coffee that reveals the full character of the region’s terroir. Selective manual harvesting, attentive processing, and careful post-harvest sorting all contribute to increasing recognition of the region.
Huila’s Departmental coffee committee, the local connection to the national Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, has invested notable resources into training producers in everything from fertilization to roasting. This, combined with producer enthusiasm, has created a regional culture of quality-focused production.
Huila holds important historic significance dating back to pre-Columbian cultures. The archeological site at San Agustin includes a large number of stone carvings, figures, and artifacts that offer a rare glimpse into the land’s past prior to colonialism.
