- Description - Reviews Our latest Colombian special comes from importer Semilla and the Monkaaba collective in San Agustin, Huila. This project with six partnering farms began in 2020 which has now grown to 60 families. The project is led by Esnaider Ortega Gomez and Didier Ortega and is based on the principles of open access and community support. Every weekend during harvest time, their home was opened to any smallholder who wanted free sample roasting and cupping with the aim of providing unbiased and clear feedback. The Monkaaba project is made up of smallholders many with the same stories. Around 60% of these growers are under the age of 35, and prior to the Monkaaba project, sold mostly into the local "black market" either in wet or dry parchment. The remaining 40% had some access to the speciality market, but never with year on year guarantees. Esnaider and other like minded farmers wanted to create a new structure that supported smallholders to improve their knowledge, quality, and profitability through pedeagogical support. Two producers contributed to this particular Sidra lot: Benedicto Fernandez and Milton Augusto Ortega and their two farms La Curva and Campo Verde in San Agustín. The processing varies slightly between the producers before each delivered their parchment to the Monkaaba HQ for analysis and selection. The Sidra variety emerged from a Nestlé coffee breeding facility in the Pichincha province of Ecuador sometime in the 1990s. The facility was developing hybrids using Ethiopian and Bourbon material, chasing cup quality and yield together. This low intervention coffee is super clean and juicy and we've roasted this to highlight those characteristics with minimal roast 'influence'. When we cupped the first roasted batch Jack made a comment which seems appropriate to the processing and the roasting... no funny business here.

- Description - Reviews Our latest Colombian special comes from importer Semilla and the Monkaaba collective in San Agustin, Huila. This project with six partnering farms began in 2020 which has now grown to 60 families. The project is led by Esnaider Ortega Gomez and Didier Ortega and is based on the principles of open access and community support. Every weekend during harvest time, their home was opened to any smallholder who wanted free sample roasting and cupping with the aim of providing unbiased and clear feedback. The Monkaaba project is made up of smallholders many with the same stories. Around 60% of these growers are under the age of 35, and prior to the Monkaaba project, sold mostly into the local "black market" either in wet or dry parchment. The remaining 40% had some access to the speciality market, but never with year on year guarantees. Esnaider and other like minded farmers wanted to create a new structure that supported smallholders to improve their knowledge, quality, and profitability through pedeagogical support. Two producers contributed to this particular Sidra lot: Benedicto Fernandez and Milton Augusto Ortega and their two farms La Curva and Campo Verde in San Agustín. The processing varies slightly between the producers before each delivered their parchment to the Monkaaba HQ for analysis and selection. The Sidra variety emerged from a Nestlé coffee breeding facility in the Pichincha province of Ecuador sometime in the 1990s. The facility was developing hybrids using Ethiopian and Bourbon material, chasing cup quality and yield together. This low intervention coffee is super clean and juicy and we've roasted this to highlight those characteristics with minimal roast 'influence'. When we cupped the first roasted batch Jack made a comment which seems appropriate to the processing and the roasting... no funny business here.