Story
La Miranda village is nestled in the high peaks and valleys of the Antioquia Andes mountain range of northwestern Colombia. This is our second year supporting this decaffeinated project with Arango Specialty Coffee, Juan Arango’s exporting company, a La Miranda local and multigenerational coffee farmer himself, Juan assembled this community lot from coffees grown by 20 family farms in the remote highlands of Antioquia, Colombia.
This lot, made from Castillo and Colombia varieties is grown at 2,100 MASL in volcanic soil on steep, shady hills, with no pesticides. For Juan, this coffee is deeply personal. He grew up alongside the farming families whose coffees make up this harvest and has firsthand knowledge of the challenges they have faced.
For years, Juan says, communities in the area lived under the presence and control of paramilitary groups and drug traffickers. La Miranda’s location within regional routes used for the movement of drugs toward the coast placed communities in a particularly difficult position. Through our conversations with Juan, he has described specialty coffee production and the relationships he has built as an important path toward greater economic opportunity and independence for farming families in the region.
“This coffee comes from the community that I grew up in. I know first hand the struggles and limitations of the farmers. If I had to resume the work of this group of farmers in two words, that would be ‘Respect and Resilience.’” Before this coffee ever reaches us, the beans make a remarkable journey through Colombia.
From the high-altitude mountains of La Miranda, the coffee travels roughly 400 km to Manizales, where it reaches Descafecol’s decaffeination plant. Here, it is decaffeinated in Colombia using the sugarcane Ethyl Acetate process, using ethyl acetate derived from sugarcane. The result is a clean, vibrant decaffeinated coffee that retains its density for longer shelf life off harvest than traditional decaffeinated coffee.
Then the coffee begins another long journey toward the coast: roughly 600 km by road to Cartagena, where it is prepared for export. So before this coffee travels across borders to reach your cup, it has already crossed Colombia—from remote Andean farms, down to be decaffeinated, and back toward the Caribbean coast.
We taste cookie dough, cinnamon and lemon in the cup.
