Colombia
Santander
22 Women heads of household
Finca Santa Maria
Castillo
Honey
December
Cranberry, Nuts, Malt, Milk Chocolate
1775 meters
Con Manos de Mujer, Rainforest Alliance, Organic, Bird Friendly
70 kg w/ GrainPro
SOLD OUT
Finca Santa Maria is one of nine farms within Hacienda Cafetera La Pradera in Aratoca, Santander, Colombia. Santa Maria is run by 22 women, all heads of household, and follows La Pradera’s mission of strengthening the Santander coffee cluster, contributing positively to the community, and producing coffee in harmony with the natural world.
Finca Santa Maria is certified with the Con Manos de Mujer seal, verifying that it was produced by the hard work of women coffee producers. They share the labor of planting, tending, pruning, harvesting, and processing the coffee. La Pradera also involves both locals and visitors in the operations of the farm, inviting everyone to visit and see the hard work that the women of Finca Santa Maria have undertaken.
This lot of Castillo coffee underwent Honey processing. Ripe cherries are harvested, cleaned, and sorted before being fermented whole for 22 hours. Cherries are then pulped and the pulped cherries are fermented anaerobically for 50 hours with controlled temperature. The fermented, pulped coffee is then dehydrated for 15 hours before being mechanically dried to a humidity of 11%.
Get to know Ana Mildred Muñoz who leads Finca Santa Maria in our blog series, A Few Questions With.
Santander is unique among Colombia’s coffee growing regions, with a varied topography of mountains, rivers, canyons, and valleys. Located to the east of Antioquia and the north of Boyaca, Cundinamarca, and Bogota in Central Colombia, the department of Santander was established in 1857 and today contains a variety of agricultural industries.
Santander’s Andes mountains are where some of the first coffee farms in Colombia were established, and the Department’s agricultural history is intertwined with the history of coffee. Fresh water sources and rich soil continue to make the region suited for coffee farming today, with shade trees and forests incorporated on most farms.
