Colombia Edinson Lozada

Colombia EDISON LOZADAE

  is a young coffee producer on his farm La Cabaña.

The farm is 8.5 ha in total with 8.1 ha of coffee and 0.4 ha of natural forest. In total, there are around 25,000 trees with this split of varietals: Colombia (10,000 trees, 4 years old), Castillo (5,000 trees, 6 years old), Cenicafe 1 (6,900 trees, 3 years old), Catimore (3,800 trees, 6 years old). Coffee has always been part of his life as it is part of their family history to be coffee producers.

During the harvest, they pass lots to pick coffee every 20 days, and the pickers are rewarded for picking ripe cherries with a bonus per kilogram. Once picked, the coffee undergoes an overnight fermentation in cherry in sacks before being pulped and fermented in tanks for 20 hours. Once ready, it is then washed and taken to the drying station where it is dried in a parabolic dryer until it reaches 11% moisture.

Edinson has been a member of Café Agrario for 6 years, which is an association of producers from Ortega in Tolima. Most of the associates are coffee growers, and there are 35 members.

Café Agrario has faced challenges in the past, being situated in a region troubled by the civil war, as well as dealing with poor leadership and coffees being sold on credit to buyers who never paid for the coffee delivered. In more recent years, they have been focusing on specialty coffee to add value to their product and have begun roasting and selling coffee locally to further increase its value.