COLOMBIA - Miraflores . .

The context

Miraflores is the area that looks over Finca La Aurora. It is the home of Reinel and Felipe, the drivers that collect the coffee harvests that are delivered to La Aurora, Villarmaria’s buying point.

They are key members of the community and Miraflores is home to the largest number of Villamaria’s coffee producers. The area sits at an average altitude of 1800 MASL, with an extraordinary view of the snowy mountains of El Cisne, El Volcan Nevado del Ruiz, and Santa Isabel.

"We pray for your business to be good because the services that La Aurora provides us are very important for our community. Now we don’t need to spend late hours pulping and washing coffee, and on top of that, the transport is free."

- Reinel Giraldo, harvest collector for Miraflores

Villamaría's processing station, Jamaica, was chosen
due to its perfect climate and altitude for the drying of
naturally processed coffee. Alongside this, the large
space available meant that producing high-quality
naturals at scale was a possibility not available before.
As the project gained speed, roasters worldwide
began to buy long-term from Villamaría, and
neighbouring communities were able to see the merits
of selling cherry to La Aurora, the delivery and buying
point for Jamaica, instead of parchment to a nearby
trilladora. The sale of whole cherries to a processing
station is a method uncommon in Colombia but seen
in many other coffee-producing countries.
We can see that the communities including Villarazo,
La Batea and Corozal have been positively affected by
the existence of Jamaica. Today, we see a continued
increase of producers delivering their cherry to La
Aurora, which is also a contributing farm managed by
Rubiel Orrego. Like many coffee producers in
Colombia, producers of Villamaría had historically
been promised higher prices and the purchase of a
farmer's entire crop by large institutions in the past.
Having never delivered on this promise,
understandably faith in new ventures had greatly
diminished amongst producers.
Thankfully, Jamaica is a processing station that
neighbours the communities who sell to Villamaría,
and our consistent return every harvest has helped
those hesitant to see that we are committed long-term.
The producers that create the lots you enjoy from
Villamaría, now grow in number as word spreads of a
system that ensures better prices, for reduced labour
(selling cherry not processed parchment), and a need
for a growing volume of their harvest as roasters
continue to support harvest on harvest.

The Station
Villamaría is a Colombian municipality located in the
department of Caldas. The region is fed by numerous
sources of water and natural resources. Villamaría is
located a few kilometres from the city of Manizales,
whose urban areas are surrounded by the Chinchiná
River. Our drying station "Jamaica" is located in
Chinchiná, Caldas. The station currently represents the
harvests of 30 to 50 coffee producing families in the
surrounding area of Villarazo, sitting at altitudes higher
than the drying station itself. As Jamaica sits 500
metres lower than the producers, at 1300 MASL. This
climate is better suited to the processing of honey and
natural coffees due to the hotter temperatures found
here.
This station is focussed on the production of washed,
honey, and natural lots. With the aid of Nuna
dehydrator and mechanical drying systems, controlling
humidity and temperature throughout the drying
process aids the processing of honey and natural lots.