Origin: Sevilla, San Agustin, Huila, Colombia

Producer: Ferney Erazo

Farm: Eucaliptos (1.8 hectares)

Process: Washed

Varieties: Caturra

Elevation: 1840masl

Importer: Semilla & Monkaaba

Roast: Light-Medium

Notes: Marmalade, Black Plum, Orange Blossom, Caramel

Farmgate paid to Ferney via Monkaaba - $2,700,000.00 Colombian Pesos / Carga (125kg parchment coffee)

Semilla’s FOB price : $4.18USD/lb exportable green coffee

our price - $5.55 usd/lb + shipping etc.

Ferney Erazo : 

Meeting Ferney ~

On our trip to San Agustin this year, Sonny had the great opportunity to visit Ferney on his farm, just neighbouring other Monkaaba producers Gloria & Fredi Ortega. 

Walking down the hill to Ferney's farm you see the rolling mountains, and the town of San Agustin far in the distance. Along the road to his house the hills cascade down full with beautiful health coffee plants, and scattered throughout Finca Eucaliptos are beautiful citrus trees, plantain trees, and various other forms of vegetation providing lots of benefits to the farm.

Ferney was excited to show us his parchment that he had drying on his Elda(drying beds on top of a house, with a moveable roof), and talk us through his process, which is detailed below.

Ferney was excited to hear that not only did we buy his first ever micro-lot, but immediately bought his second as soon as it was offered. He is a young, curious, and hard-working producer who is already growing amazing coffee, and we're excited to have the opportunity to present his work to you.

Who's Ferney

Ferney is the exact kind of producer that Monkaaba and Semilla are out there to find and help bring into the specialty market. Ferney grew up working on his fathers farm, and purchased his first plot of land at the age of 15, and another 5 years later, but sadly both of those farms didn’t work out for him.

 On his second farm, which was a lower altitude farm, he came across many issues. With lower altitude came higher risks of diseases for the plants, and required him to use much more heavy-duty chemicals to keep those at bay, ultimately effecting his health.

After much effort, he left that farm feeling defeated, and re-joined his family at their farm, where he worked for 7 years, until 2020 when his sister came to him with an opportunity. She had received a small lot called Eucaliptos in Sevilla, and offered to trade him for his farm in Matanzas, where she would grow other crops.

the now -

Here in Sevilla Ferney was reminded of the times at his family farm, and felt more at home than his previous farms. He got to work renovating the farm, improving on the Caturra and San Bernardo trees they already had, and germinating new Pink Bourbon for higher quality prices in the future.

In November of 2022 Ferney found himself at the doors of the Monkaaba lab in Huila at the insistence of his neighbors who sold through Monkaaba. He brought his first samples then, and with some guidance from the other producer in Monkaaba, he was able to make such improvements that Semilla purchased his first Micro-lot in 2023.

Brendan from Semilla writes

“To connect with these growers who enter the Monkaaba bodega frankly confused and mystified by the whole premise of the project, let alone the premise of specialty coffee, and to see them become excited and engaged members in their own story, is the whole value proposition of this project. And the most important thing to know is that it matters to these growers - as Ferney told us, not only is he very proud to see his coffee sold under his own name, and motivated to continue, he spoke strongly of the need for this project to continue and how valuable it was to people like him to have an open resource that would allow him to improve and to have opportunities that otherwise would never exist.”

Interested in reading more about Monkaaba? Let me guide you to our lovely friends website to read more! - https://www.semilla.ca/projects/1jq18VvLX0WoyK7hvxeeLM

it’s worth the read!

"so, what does it taste like?"

a light-medium roast, this coffee is big in aromatics and flavours. bringing out big jammy citrus marmalade notes, black plum, orange blossom, and rich caramels... it's kinda the perfect Caturra. Enjoy it as a nice filter or espresso.

the details:

Cherries are collected every three weeks at peak ripeness and are left to ferment for 24 hours in cherry in a wooden hopper before being depulped.

Next, the depulped coffee undergoes a dry ferment of 24 hours, at which point a small amount of water is added to cover it and the cherries picked on the third day are then depulped into this.

The total mass is left to wet ferment for another 24 hours before being washed. Once rinsed clean, it is moved to an elda rooftop dryer where it dries for 18 - 20 days.

happy sippin'!