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La Miranda is a silky, citrusy decaf courtesy of a new relationship with Arango Specialty Coffee, representing the remote village of La Miranda in Antioquia, Colombia. Flavours of cookie dough, cinnamon and lemon fill this cup. Collected and curated by third-generation coffee farmer and passionate, civic-minded entrepreneur Juan Carlos Arango, this blend of Castillo, Typica, and Colombia varieties was harvested mostly from local families on 1-hectare farms.
For Juan, relationships are everything. The 10 producers behind this lot all grew up with him, their school teacher being his mother. Their names remain undisclosed here to protect their safety (not for lack of transparency). Arango’s model runs on longstanding trust built through direct purchases. In this remote region situated between Medellín and the Pacific Ocean, communities don’t always have the ability to stick together; and Juan remembers the darker times all too well.
In the late ‘80s and ‘90s, sleepy rural villages across the Andes mountains were targeted by cartels for growing and producing coca. Antioquia’s location also provided a strategic corridor for transporting weapons and drugs to Colombia’s western ports, which led to frequent violent clashes between guerilla groups, paramilitary outfits and the government. Villages like La Miranda saw vast tracts of land transform into drug cash crop operations—many of Juan’s friends followed this path, albeit without much choice.
In 2000, after escalated tensions led to a tragedy Juan only refers to as “the massacre,” the loss of life, land, and hope drove many families out permanently. The 10 producers who grew this lot were among those who stayed, taking a chance on coffee to provide a long term source of greater prosperity. It’s been Juan’s goal to help create and maintain this future, and he started Arango Specialty Coffee with Sergio and Carlos Mario Giraldo to open up markets beyond what has been limited to selling to the local Cooperativa de Caficultores. “We should not judge people on their past,” Juan told us. “We should give them opportunities and give them a chance."
Colombia produces and exports more washed coffee than anywhere else in the world, and at 2100 MASL, the Aburrá Valley’s rich volcanic soil, steep hills, and variable microclimates, combine to create ideal conditions for what Juan calls “low intervention farming.”. Additionally, the resistance of hybrid varieties like Castillo and Colombia to Roya and leaf rust offer a welcome stability for farmers in this department.
This harvest was wet-processed using micro-depulpers and washing stations on growers’ own farms. It was dry-milled locally by Nutrigrüp and sent to Descafecol in Manizales to be decaffeinated by the sugarcane Ethyl Acetate process in small batches. This is the first decaf offering by Arango, and having purchased 5 of the 60 available bags, Dispatch is the first roastery in Canada to stock La Miranda.
