Colombia - Azahar x Covoya - Narino Community Lot

From our friends at Azahar:

Known for its expansive landscape of endless, rolling green mountains, Narino is home to Galeras Volcano, which creates a perfect environment for coffee growth, and a ring of scenic, Andean communities with long-lasting, high-altitude coffee-growing traditions. The producers who contributed to this lot cultivate other hardy crops such as sugar cane, corn and potatoes on some of Colombia's steepest, smallest and hardest-to-reach farms. Although the rural roads and infrastructure in this part of the country are relatively well-maintained and include a long stretch of the Pan American highway--one of South America's most important commercial routes--much of Narino's towns and municipalities are considerably off the beaten path. Farmers must often travel in hired local transport in order to deliver their parchment coffee, a journey which adds to their already high costs of production. The producers who contributed to this coffee all traveled considerable distances, and for this we are extremely grateful.

For this lot, Castillo, Caturra and Colombia beans were delivered to the Chachagui municipal warehouse and point of sale, as well as the Pasto Lunas point of sale, located just off the Circunvalar Galeras, a paved road that encircles the Galeras volcano, connecting various municipalities. The cherries were grown at elevations between 1,400 and 2,000 m.a.s.l., and after being carefully hand-selected at peak ripeness, the coffee was fermented for 7 to 25 hours, then washed and dried for around 7 to 25 days in patios, marquesinas, mechanical and parabolic dryers.