Colombia El Paraíso

El Paraíso is a brand created by producers from the town of Tarqui in the Huila region. Coffee is one of the most important economic factors in the area. Tarqui is made up of 54 veredas (subdivisions of a municipality in Colombia), 37 of which produce coffee, totaling 3,305 hectares. Tarqui is a place with diverse soil conditions where various coffee varieties can be found. Typically, these farms have forests or water springs, reflecting the richness of the coffee ecosystem. These conditions make it ideal for coffee production, hence the brand’s name, which means Paradise in Spanish.

The farms of the Tarqui producers range in size from 1 to 5 hectares, and together they have created this community to improve the quality of their coffees and their quality of life. Since starting this joint project, more producers have joined, and changes have been observed on their farms with improvements in the wet processing and the expansion of drying areas. At the same time, they have acquired more knowledge about processing, harvesting, fermentation and drying.

The harvesting is carried out selectively, with only the coffee cherries that have reached their optimal level of ripeness being collected. Afterwards, each farm processes the cherries in its own wet mill, where they are pulped without water, and the beans are placed in open-air tanks for an average period of approximately 24 hours. After this process, the beans are washed two to three times to remove the remaining mucilage.

Once this stage is completed, the coffee is sun-dried on patios for 15 to 20 days. It is then packed into sacks and stored on the farms for an additional two weeks before being transported to the dry mill.