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Dry-processed (as knowns as natural) coffees from Colombia are extremely rare and we are proud to offer you this small microlot from a quality-driven producer.
Luis Saldarriaga is the owner of the farm La Claudina in Ciudad Bolivar, but it's his son Juan who really is the producer in this case. Juan is experimenting with different processing methods, varietals, and is also helping other younger producers in the area. This lot is a natural, and is 50/50 Castillo and Colombia varieties. The two farms he now owns are about 60 hectares each, in altitudes from 1400 to 1800 meters. He is experimenting with different cultivars in different altitudes, and many of them are recently planted. Antioquia is known for solid, but maybe slightly boring coffees, but there is a lot going on right now, and we think these coffees are proof of that. The biggest challenge is the drying due to humidity and temperature. After we met Juan and started to talk about drying under shade, he immediately constructed drying facilities with raised bed under cover. He has also installed a machine that can dry with cold air and with a software where you can adjust temperature, airflow etc, and make profiles on different coffees.
Hes also working with friends and surrounding producers with Caturras and other cultivars up to 2000 masl. Many of them are young small farmers that are eager to proof that antioquia have more than chocolaty and heavy bodied coffees.

Dry process seems simple: pick the fruit, lay it out in the sun until it turns from red to brown to near-back, and then hull off off the thick, dried outer layer in one step to reveal the green bean. It is a method suited to arid regions, where the sun and heat can dry the seed inside the intact fruit skin.
It's often referred to as "natural coffee" because of its simplicity, and because the fruit remains intact and undisturbed, a bit like drying grapes into raisins. Since it requires minimal investment, the dry process method is a default to create cheap commodity-grade coffee in areas that have the right climate capable of drying the fruit and seed.
But it’s a fail in humid or wet regions. If the drying isn't progressing fast enough, the fruit degrades, rots or molds.
Dry-processed coffees can also be wildly inconsistent. If you want a cleanly-fruited, sweet, intense cup, dry process (DP) takes more hand labor than the wet process. Even the most careful pickers will take green unripe or semi-ripe coffee off the branch as they pick red, ripe cherry. If these are not removed in the first days of drying, the green turns to brown that is hard to distinguish from the ripe fruit.