Story
Last year, we were thrilled to receive the first micro lot ever to bear Yuri Montanchez’s name, and this year, we are equally enthused to showcase the second. Along with two of her brothers, Robert and Mauricio, Yuri manages Los Guaduales, a 5.5 hectare farm in Alto del Obispo, Simon Bolivar, San Agustin, Huila, Colombia.
After the unexpected passing of their father, Don Jesus, in 2021, Robert Montanchez joined Monkaaba—a smallholder coffee grower empowerment initiative based in San Agustin. Prior to this, the family was selling all of their coffee to large exporters, where they would be blended into full container shipments, obscuring the coffee’s final trajectory as well as the quality that the Montanchez family was already achieving on the farm. Once linked with Monkaaba, however, things rapidly began to change for all of the Montanchez siblings, and for Los Guaduales as a whole.
With the farm divided into 3 equal parts, Yuri wound up taking over management of a parcel primarily containing the Castillo variety. Though this variety certainly has the potential to yield delicious results—as proven by her debut micro lot last year —it is primarily planted for its strong disease tolerance, and it took years of refining all aspects of the process before the quality was high enough to sell on its own as a micro lot. In addition to what this conveys about Yuri’s personal determination and talent, it also reinforces the value of the Monkaaba feedback loop—as our importing partners, Semilla, frame it: “With the emphasis on sharing information at the cupping level, Yuri and the family at large have been able to make modifications in their post harvest processing approaches so as to augment the final cup.”
In our second straight season receiving the results of these efforts, we can attest that Yuri continues to represent Los Guaduales well and to deliver an absolutely beautiful rendition of the Castillo variety—this year with a little help from some Pink Bourbon as well. In the cup, we taste blood orange, maple syrup, and fresh pollen.
