Finca La Esmeralda

Special coffee

Our special high quality organic coffee is a product of 10,000 plants.

Our history

La Esmeralda is located in Guavio Bajo in Fusagasugá, Colombia, at 1450 meter above see level has an average temperature of 25ºC and two rainy seasons. Its production is 100% organic seeking for high quality products. The soil and water use is adapted to the local conditions in a way that the resources are not only harvested but reused. We include in our policy a constant social equity. One of our goals is biodiversity conservation and growth through the combination of its different economic activities, which turns the farm into an auto-sustainable system.

The farm has a long and diverse history of over 30 years. Initially it was grassland with so many tones of green that its name should be one more of them: the green of emerald. Slowly the landscape was modified, the farm produced dragon fruit, tomatoes and several vegetables until 2012 when the first coffee plants arrived.

Nowadays, it has two ponds with fishes that change the hydric dynamic of the system, an agroforestry system where Coffee is grown and some grassland that nourish milk cows. In collaboration with the cows, worms help closing the nutrient cycle, producing a high-value fertilizer which turns La Esmeralda into a living organism. The organic production of the farm includes elements of permaculture, organic agriculture and traditional local knowledge.

Since 2018 the farm is also the headquarters of the AgroCultural Asociation Caracolí that seeks to develop auto-sustainable system that harvest art and culture.

Team

Martha Isabel León Castaño

Colombia

Timothée Uehlinger

Switzerland

Fabio Nelson Bernal

Colombia

Coffee

Plantation

Varieties

Located at 1450 meter above see level with a medium altitude and a warm climate, we have mainly varieties adapted to our conditions. Seeking for a higher diversity in our notes and a higher biodiversity that increases the resistance and tolerance of the system to diseases, we also created microclimates for other varieties. Nowadays we have 10000 coffee trees from the varieties Castillo, Catimore (Costarica 95) and Tabi.

Shade

In the areas where there is no shade, we are running a program for planting over 300 shade trees in order to achieve an agroforestry system that demands less input and yields a higher cup through the slow ripening of the cherries under shade.

Organic fertilization

Our production is entirely organic. We manufacture our own compost and liquid fertilizers to make sure they have a proper origin.

Post Harvest Processing

After a thorough selection of only the ripe and healthy cherries, we experiment with different fermentations both in cherry and depulped beans. We use both aerobic and anaerobic fermentation with different lengths to obtain the best results in our different processing. We finally produce all honey types and high quality fully-washed coffee.

Drying

We designed and built our own sun drying facility where we carefully lower the beans humidity to avoid any attribute loss.

Commercia
lization

Commercialization

We wish to close the coffee production chain. Our aim is to attain direct contact with roasters and consumers in order to, as producers, develop a product that suits each ones needs. Though this direct contact we want to communicate and make visible our situation as producers so that a more conscious and responsible consume takes place. In this way, we can implement a fair and direct trade involving each part both in the production and the risks that it has.

If you are in Switzerland, you can support us and try out our coffee! From April 1st and for 40 days we run a campaign to find resources to implement a new grey water system that cleans the water used during coffee processing. This is one of the steps required to obtain the organic certification that will allow us to have a better price for our coffee. Follow our campaign.