About Hugo and Carlos Perdomo of Colombia

Last year we featured a coffee from Carlos Perdomo who only produced three bags of specialty coffee as a trail run. His first attempt was simply amazing so we asked Carlos if he could produce ten bags of coffee for us in this harvest. He was very happy to oblige us. However, when he attended a semester of school abroad no one predicted a global pandemic that would close all borders. Due to covid Carlos was unable to return home and finish this lot for us. Luckily Carlos' father was able to step in and help with the final steps of this coffee's production. We felt the need to name this coffee after Carlo's father, Don Hugo, who was able to make sure we got Carlo's coffee this year. This coffee was literally a global team effort between Carlos, Hugo, and Cosecha Traders to make this special lot happen.

When one meets Carlos for the first time, one quickly understands why his coffee is outstanding. At 18, Carlos is hard-working, disciplined, organized, and mature. He is a fifth-generation coffee farmer who works the land with his mother and father. In our opinion, Carlos is a coffee renaissance man. He produces, transports, roasts, cups, and brews his own coffee. These are all skills he’s learned while working as the warehouse and lab manager for a youth-producer association that promotes processing specialty coffee. “Coffee represents my family’s life, my great-grandparents’ lives, it is what has given us everything,” says Carlos. Since he was 12 years of age, he would transport his family’s harvest to town in his father’s truck. Carlos would also drive the truck, which served as a second source of income for his family, shipping produce to different towns in Western Huila. It is most likely for this reason that Carlos skillfully navigates treacherous roads in his trusty Montero with an ear-to-ear grin. “My parents taught me to work early on so I make something of myself,” says Carlos.

This micro-lot represents a portion of Carlos’s family farm. In total, they have 55,000 coffee trees composed of Yellow Colombia, Red Castillo, and Yellow Bourbon varietals. To develop the fruity sweetness in this coffee, he fermented the coffee cherries for 20 - 30 hours, then de-pulped the beans and fermented in the mucilage for 24 hours. He infused the coffee with water for another 24 hours for a 48 hour total fermentation. The beans were then given a rinse with another quality sorting step. Cherries which floated on the top of the washing channel were separated again to ensure only the best ones made it through. Finally, the coffee dried on a covered patio for 25 days. When it was fully dry, the parchment was packed in GrainPro bags.

Carlos says, “Our family history helps us produce the quality we have, but also motivates us to improve our quality because it means we are improving our quality of life too.”