Colombia Villa Lara Washed 2023

Finca Villa Lara

In 2010, Jonathan Lara Parke and Beatriz Gomez Cala settled at Villa Lara with the intention of starting a small recreational farm. All that changed during a chance encounter with an agronomist from the National Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC), who steered the couple towards an incentive program to revitalize Colombia’s coffee industry.

Villa Lara is located in the Colombian department of Cundinamarca, at 1650masl. The coffee population on the farm grew to over 45,000 trees on eight of the 23 hectares that Villa Lara encompasses. Jonathan and Beatriz specialize in producing micro lots of high-quality coffee. Additionally, the couple focuses on farming practices that embrace all aspects of sustainability, including: land conservation; wildlife protection; and worker empowerment.

Castillo and Tabi Green Coffee

Colombia is one of the few coffee origins that almost exclusively grows Arabica coffee. That’s because the high altitudes of the Andes mountains are so well-suited to quality Arabica cultivation. The Castillo and Tabi varieties were both developed by Cenicafe, Colombia’s premier coffee research center, as rust-resistant strains. Tabi is a cross between Typica, Bourbon, and Timor hybrid, while Castillo is derived from a cross between the Caturra and Timor hybrid varieties.

Washed Process Green Coffee

In the “washed” or “wet” process coffee cherries are floated and sorted to ensure consistent ripeness and to remove any defective cherries. The seeds (coffee beans) are then removed from their skins using depulping machines and typically moved to fermentation tanks to remove the mucilage—the remaining fruit remnants. Afterward, the coffee is washed and dried until it reaches the optimal moisture level. Washed processing has become widely popular. The cup profile of washed coffees tends to reflect the terroir of the coffee. The processing method allows the growing conditions, the region, and the true character of the coffee to shine through.

Colombian Coffee

Over half a million families dedicate their livelihoods to producing unroasted Colombia green coffee on small farms that dot the country’s volcanic mountain ranges. As the world’s third-largest producing country, the volume, quality, and variety that comes out of Colombia year-round is staggering. Coffee from Colombia is never dull, and with 16 coffee-producing regions along three mountain ranges and two harvests each year, Colombia always has fresh coffee on hand. Read more in our Colombian Coffee Origin Report.