The Elegant and Sophisticated Sibling: Colombia Inza Asorcafe
If you enjoy drinking Wind & Sea and Shore Leave Hook, then you’ve tasted beans sourced through Siruma Coffee. They’ve supplied us with some of the finest Colombian coffees since 2019, and in the Fall of 2023, Kat (Andytown Director of Operations) and I traveled with Falcon Specialty to meet with the Siruma team and the farmers they work with.
traveling to farming areas often calls for “cozy” rides in rugged vehicles.
From left to right, top to bottom: Gabriel, Siruma Logistics Coordinator, Adam from magnifico coffee; Corazon, Valentina, CEO and founder of siruma, and corey, falcon sales representative
Siruma Coffee is an exporting company founded by Valentina Duque in 2018. She grew up around coffee farms, learned about the coffee business from her father, and continued her coffee education by working at a farmer support and training center. While there, she was exposed to hundreds of individual farmers, associations, and co-ops. Over time, she came to realize there were still many farmers who produced high-quality coffees, but they didn’t have the resources to gain recognition. Siruma focuses on three regions that needs more support: Caldas, Tolima, and Cauca. While I intend to share more about all of Siruma’s amazing work another time, right now, I’m going to put a spotlight on Asorcafe, one of Siruma’s coffee-growing partners in Cauca.
in addition to the cupping lab, the asorcafe office in the town of pedregral has a farmer supply shop, a roasting machine and an espresso machine for training.
Asorcafe is located in the Inza Municipality, and it came to life more than 20 years ago in response to all of the local buyers around Inza paying farmers below the national price for coffees. To better advocate for themselves, 120 farmers banded together and formed the association. There are currently 220 associates of Asorcafe. At first, Asorcafe produced only conventional coffee; the heavy presence of FARC guerillas had prevented the Colombian National Coffee Board (FNC) and specialty exporters from establishing relationships with farmers in the area. After the 2016 peace accord, it became easier for coffee producers like Asorcafe to seek more market opportunities. Over time, Asorcafe began to produce higher quality coffees, and now it is a leader in the region for producing specialty coffee.
Rivier is a farmer and a q-grader. He has been an associate of Asorcafe for many years.
Asorcafe pays farmers well for high-quality coffee. Their strict quality measures incentivize farmers to take good care of their farms and process and sort their coffees well before selling them to Asorcafe. Regardless of volume, every submission is cupped in the lab to ensure quality before it is sorted into specific lots. Lower-quality coffees—which are truly still quite good—go to the local market. Some of it is sold as green coffee to local buyers, and some of it Asorcafe roasts itself and sells it to locals. Higher-quality coffees are sorted into community lot and microlots for export. It’s important to note that the lower-quality coffee .
some scenery on the drive to inza
At the lab, we cupped a little more than a dozen samples with the Asorcafe QC team. This was one of the most memorable cupping sessions I’ve had on an origin trip, because every sample was sweet and clean. There was one coffee on the table that stood out the most to me and Kat, and after a year since tasting it on the trip, I’m excited to finally feature it on the menu as a single origin. We don’t often get a chance to talk about the producers who contribute to our blends, and highlighting a single-origin lot from Asorcafe is a small way for us to give praise for their hard work.
This coffee is a community blend, and I think of it as the more elegant and sophisticated sibling of the lot we use for our in-house blends. It has a brilliant but balanced acidity, a juicy body, and sweet and bright finish. It’s great for anytime of the day, but it’s currently my favorite coffee to have in the afternoon!
