We’re not traveling as much these days given the global health situation, but we have lots of great footage from our trips to origin with the coffee champs. Here’s a review of our trip to Nariño, Huila, and Cundinamarca Colombia, where we had the opportunity to introduce the coffee champs to our partners.
ChampTrip 2018 Promo I from Ally Coffee on Vimeo.
Nariño
Nariño will always be a special origin for Ally Coffee, as it is where we developed some of our first partnerships with producing communities. We visited Hacienda El Obraje in Tangua outside of Pasto and members of the Aponte community greeted us on Finca El Paraiso outside of Buesaco.
Evan Browning enjoys the view from Obraje.
Cupping Obraje coffees.
Lively reception on Finca El Paraiso.
Buesaco hosts and the champs.
In Pitalito, Huila we visited Finca Monteblanco, the experimental farm run by Rodrigo Sanchez and Aromas del Sur. We had a (ripe!) cherry picking contest and learned about how Monteblanco reviews the variables of each harvest to employ their many processing styles and about the farm’s range of varieties.
Visiting SENA coffee school outside of Pitalito.
Cundinamarca
We visited the coffee farm and permaculture wonderland that is La Palma y El Tucan in Zipacon, Cundinamarca. The champs learned about composting, biodiversity, and prepared some stellar coffees on the farm’s open air coffee bar. We also visited ExpoEspeciales in Bogota, where Ally Coffee was one of the sponsors of the Colombia national barista championship.
Felipe Sardi teaches the champs about biodyamic farming.
Sara Frinak and Becca Woodard brew coffee.
See you soon, Colombia!
Coffee keeps us connected to friends and partners around the world, even when we cannot get on a plane and all get together. We are grateful for experiences like the Champ Trips to build connections and to continue finding to ways to move coffee forward.