About Abel Castaneda of Colombia

This spectacular coffee hails from the steep hillsides surrounding the remote town of Santa Maria in the Huila region of Colombia. On a recent trip to origin, the Case Coffee Roaster’s team drove on hair-raising dirt roads for almost three hours to reach this lush coffee growing area. This micro-lot—all five bags of it—is from the farm of Abel Castaneda, one of the farms that works with Azahar Coffee in Colombia.

The team at Azahar has a mission to halt the coffee value chain at the point where separate coffees begin to lose connection to the farmers who produce them. They interview farmers, find outstanding coffees, and assign unique QR Codes to each producer they work with. This allows coffee drinkers a way to trace each coffee back to the human being who grew it, which in turn adds value to coffee at its source, bringing higher premiums that hardworking farmer.