La Pradera - Colombia (box)
  • La Pradera - Colombia (box)
  • La Pradera - Colombia (front)
  • La Pradera - Colombia (retro)
  • La Pradera - Colombia (product)

Colombia

La Pradera, Mokka nanolot

250g

*Premium Rarities*

QUALITY SCORE: 94.00

Cup Notes
Cherry / Pineapple / Black Tea / Mango / Clementine / Nougat


 
Suggested for espresso and filter


when we roast

We freshly roast to order all coffees on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding national holidays), and ship the same day! Cut-off time is 11:59pm (UTC+1) of the day before the roast day. *We only ship whole beans*

Details

Quality Score
94.00
Producer
La Pradera
Country
Colombia
Terroir
Santander
Altitude
1850 masl
Process
Anaerobic Natural
Arabica cultivar
Mokka
Picked in
March 2020
Arrived in
December 2020
Shipped in
Box + Vacuum pack
Roast profile by
Rubens Gardelli
Roasted on
Customised solid-drum roaster

THE STORY BEHIND

Hacienda Cafetalera La Pradera is a family-owned estate in Aratoca, Santander, that has received an Organic production certification. Four generations of the Daza Bautistas have been directly involved in the production, processing, and export of outstanding organic specialty coffee.
In the early 1970s Mr. Héctor Daza began the transformation of the family farm into a coffee paradise by planting various timber and fruit trees that served to create a beautiful shade canopy for the different varieties of coffee he cultivated. This was a start of a lifelong commitment to environmentally friendly practices at La Pradera. The 1980s were a challenging period, with low market prices and adverse meteorological conditions. However, through a commitment to environmentally friendly and quality-centred practices, the Dazas have managed to withstand the hardship and reaffirm their position, producing lots for the global market. Their rigorous production practices have been recognised through already mentioned Organic Certification, as well as Rainforest Alliance and Bird-friendly certifications.

La Pradera - Colombia (story)

THE VARIETY

Mokka (sometimes Mocha or Moka) originates from Yemen; it is one of the oldest coffee varieties known. It is a short tree with small berries and leaves, and its productivity is relatively low. Mokka is a mutation of Typica that is commonly grown in Brazil and Hawaii. It was previously believed to be a separate species, but now its belonging to C. Arabica has been confirmed through genetic tests: Mokka displays four pairs of chromosomes, as is common to C. arabica plants.
At the 2014 Coffee Expo in Seattle, Oscar Daza was present at an auction where a Mokka lot was sold at USD 360 per pound. He tried the exotic coffee out of curiosity and was fascinated by the taste and the business perspective it provided. He began a nursery in 2015 and planted the first lot in 2016. From 2018, he has begun working on experimental profiles. Because beans are small and difficult to pulp, making the washed processing difficult, the team decided to use the natural process.
Oscar describes the varietal as a bit "wild": he and the team continue learning about the best way to apply the organic fertilizer, the distance between trees when planting, and the sapce this coffee varietal demands.
At first the coffee pickers at the farm were skeptical about picking this variety: they joked that they didn’t want to pick lentils. They later discovered the cherries were quite dense, and now refer to picking Mokka as picking “pure lead”, referring to its weight and density.

La Pradera - Colombia (variety)

THE FERMENTATION PROCESS

The lot is selected by the farm's elite team, who pick only perfectly ripe cherries for natural processing. The picked cherries are washed to remove dust particles, twigs or leaves that may have come from the farm, and are then floated as a second point of quality control.
The clean cherries are then packed in special airtight, hermetic bags, in which they undergo controlled anaerobic fermentation process for 120 hours.
Once this period is complete, the coffee is moved to special fiber sacks where they are left to drip for about 48 hours to eliminate any humidity or extra mucilage the coffee cherries may have accumulated during the fermentation.
The coffee is then placed on African beds for 20 days until it reaches the moisture level of  10-11%. It is then packed in Grainpro bags, to conserve the level of humidity and the quality of the beans. Finally, the bags are taken to the warehouse and stored in referenced shelves to ensure traceability.