Colombia
Antioquia
José Ignacio Gómez López
La secreta employees'
Castillo, Caturra and Colombia
Washed / Sugar Cane Decaf
2025
Brown Sugar, Dark Chocolate, Kex chocolate, Orange, silky, yellow plum
1800 meters
N/A
70 kg
EU - Hamburg, Germany - Schwarze
La Secreta is in Ciudad Bolívar, Antioquia, between the mountain range that separates Colombia’s Pacific and Andean regions. Sitting at 1,700–2,000 m.a.s.l., the farm covers 34 hectares, including 25 hectares of coffee and 8 hectares of natural reserve.
Its 130,000 trees grow on slopes that are accessible for harvesting and supported by the farm’s traditional wooden processing infrastructure. Reaching La Secreta involves steep terrain, including sections with a 27% incline, a path known locally for its difficulty. Once at the farm, the landscape opens to coffee plots intercropped with local vegetation and views characteristic of this region of Antioquia.
This lot is composed of Castillo, Colombia, and Caturra varieties processed as washed coffee. The washed process begins with depulping to remove the outer skin of the cherry, followed by a fermentation stage that loosens the mucilage around the beans. After fermentation, the beans are washed with clean water to remove any remaining fruit material and then dried to the appropriate moisture level. Decaffeination is carried out through the Sugar Cane process, a widely used method that preserves the coffee’s profile while removing caffeine using ethyl acetate derived from sugar cane fermentation.
Antioquia is perhaps Colombia’s most traditional coffee producing department, with small plots, mid-size properties, and large estates stretching up and down the steep mountains of the Western Range of the Andes that run through the department. Coffee production stretches wide through the department, beginning as soon as Medellín’s suburbs end and continuing all the way to Antioquia’s southern border with Risaralda and Caldas.
Coffee growers in Antioquia are proud “cafeteros”, where smallholders still use some traditional means like transporting coffee via mule. Many farms plant varieties developed by the Colombian Coffee Growers’ Federation (FNC), choosing varieties intended for the specific conditions of each of the country’s growing regions and adhering to standards like recommended planting densities.
But recently, Antioquia’s farmers have been branching out to implement new systems and techniques. Almost all of Colombia’s farms include a small wet mill and a drying surface, often a rooftop surface with a removable cover, for processing coffee. Antioquia’s farms are often described as “technified,” applying the latest agronomic innovations. Today, farmers diversify this technification beyond prescribed best practices suited for the whole department, instead developing their own technical improvements to make the most of their property’s attributes and produce the finest coffee possible.
Ciudad Bolívar, located in the Antioquia region, is renowned for its exceptional coffee production. The area benefits from ideal coffee-growing conditions, including altitudes ranging from 1,200 to 2,000 meters above sea level, a tropical rainforest climate with temperatures between 15°C and 28°C, and abundant rainfall.
These factors contribute to the cultivation of high-quality coffee beans with complex flavor profiles. The fertile, well-drained soils and the region’s consistent 12 hours of daylight further enhance the growth and development of coffee plants. Small-scale farmers in Ciudad Bolívar, often managing family-owned farms, utilize a mix of traditional and modern agricultural practices, ensuring meticulous care from harvest to processing.
