Notes: Dates, Rhubarb, Honey
Origin: San Agustín, Huila
Producer: Multiple Small Holders
Co-op: Monkaaba
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1670-1850 MASL
Variety: Pink Bourbon

This lot represents our first iteration of Las Nubes, designed to ensure that small lots of
higher quality coffee are still able to be purchased despite their size. The vast majority of the producers involved in this blend manage very small plots, and as a result are often delivering tiny amounts of coffee.

For example, Oscar Hoyos’s contribution to this blend was made up of two different
deliveries of 6 and nineteen kilos of parchment coffee - the equivalent of a quarter of an exportable bag. This type of quantity would be impossible to mill and export on its own (or at the very least, highly costly and time consuming) but the quality of his coffee and others involved was high enough that to reject it on the basis of size would lead them to sell it to another larger buyer where it would receive likely a lower price and also would then be anonymously blended into massive regional lots that move with little traceability and leave the smallholder wondering where their coffee went and how to build off the sale. It’s a sad reality still of the global coffee system - and especially in a massive producing state like Huila - that the logistics and management around small lots are too costly or time-consuming to make economic sense for buyers. As a result, it’s not only that the quality must be high, it’s that a smallholder must have the requisite quantity as well in order to earn the higher prices they deserve.

While there are other growers in this blend - like Augusto Ortega and Diever Galindez -
who have enough quantity and quality to consistently deliver exportable microlots of Pink Bourbon, there are many smallholders like Oscar who are seeking to learn, improve their earnings, and develop a long term relationship with the people who buy their coffee. Las Nubes seeks to serve the same purpose as our other regional blends like La Colmena, Los Idolos or our decaf, Guarapo. It’s a means of opening opportunities and giving smallholders a steady ground to build from as they make the difficult and challenging steps of improving their post harvest processing practices. Even in small amounts, the revenue earned makes a difference but more importantly, it opens a place for community, dialogue, and learning that is normally not offered to such smallholders. The result is often a holding pattern where buyers are able to benefit, and smallholders are demotivated or disincentivized to improve and grow. 

Las Nubes (The Clouds in Spanish), refers to the fact that many of these coffees scored very high on their delivery, leading Esnaider to refer to them as being por las nubes. But also, it’s a symbolic nod to the dense clouds that surround the areas where this coffee coffee grows, along the edges of the Colombia Massif.

About Monkaaba:
Monkaaba is a smallholder coffee grower empowerment initiative based in San Agustin and led by Esnaider Ortega Gomez and select other growers who have worked for many years to sell their coffee as specialty. Many of them are associated loosely or directly with the Los Naranjos group and have in recent years begun to feel that they would like to develop more autonomy over the coffee production as well as involvement in its marketing and sale.
Monkaaba’s goal then is to assist other growers in the area to not only find a better market for their coffee, one that pays a solid price, but also to invest in the knowledge and skill of producers in a way that ensures their future success.

Farmgate price: $2,600,000 Colombian Pesos per carga
National farmgate price December 2023: 1,565,000 Colombian Pesos per carga
FOB price: $4.15 USD/lb

We Paid Semilla: $5.65/lb USD + shipping