Colombia • Loma Verde • Natural
Country | Colombia
Owner | Echavarria Family
Farm | Loma Verde
Region | Antioquia
Town/City | El Vergel
Varietal | Chiroso
Process | Natural
Altitude | 1,700 MASL
Farm Size | 75.34 hectares
Owner | Echavarria Family
Farm | Loma Verde
Region | Antioquia
Town/City | El Vergel
Varietal | Chiroso
Process | Natural
Altitude | 1,700 MASL
Farm Size | 75.34 hectares
Tasting Notes | Floral, Black Tea, Chocolate Orange
Café de Santa Barbara is a family-owned company dedicated to the production and export of Colombian estate coffee. The family’s beginnings in the coffee business date from the early 20th century, when Don Alejandro Angel (great grandfather to the current generation) became the first major exporter of Colombian coffee. Foreseeing the enormous potential for the Colombian crop, in the times when Colombian coffee did not have the reputation that it holds now, he sought to convince the European and American traders that the distinctive qualities of our Arabica coffee made it worthy of recognition and admiration by the coffee roasters of the world. He succeeded beyond his contemporaries’ imagination, opened new markets and became the largest Colombian coffee exporter of his time.
This legacy greatly inspired Pedro Echavarria (husband to one of Don Alejandro’s great grand-daughters) who ventured into growing coffee three decades ago. Mr Echavarría understood that the most important step was choosing the region where to grow his coffee. After much deliberation he ended up deciding on Santa Barbara, a small county encroached into the Andean mountains in the state of Antioquia. Other than its picturesque charm, Santa Barbara offered a land with distinctive and crucial qualities, such as microclimates (due to the combination of altitude with warm air from the Cauca river valley), singular volcanic soils, perfect altitude, and a tradition of excellence in the production of coffee. Mr Echavarria started originally with a modest amount of land, but throughout the years he has constantly increased production capacity. By marrying these perfect natural conditions with hard work and efficiency, he quickly grew both the area under cultivation and his farms’ reputation. The Echavarria family began to consolidate the various lands he had purchased over the years during the 1980s. Today, Santa Barbara Estate is composed of 5 sister farms (including Loma Verde) that lie across three neighbouring, geographical regions: Santa Barbara, Fredonia and Amagá. Loma Verde is the largest of all the farms in the estate. At 75.34 hectares, it accounts for nearly 17% of the Estate’s total production.
