Jose Uribe Lasso is a new relationship for us, but we have heard his name for many years ago through a small group of friends, family and neighbours who formed a small independent association called Los Guácharos in Bruselas, Southern Huila many years ago which we are also currently featuring.Jose originally hails from Nariño, and his family moved to Huila- first to San Agustín, where they worked cutting sugarcane and producing panela, and later to Pitalito as coffee pickers. Jose saved enough to purchase the family farm, Finca El Diviso, 29 years ago. When he first bought the farm, they only had 1.5 hectares of land, but over the years he purchased neighbouring parcels, and the farm now measures 17 hectares, including 1 hectare of natural forest reserve.As recently as seven or eight years ago, the farm was planted with traditional varieties, and all of the coffee was sold commercially, sometimes even as wet parchment. But along with his sons Adrian, Nestor and Jhonathan, Jose decided to focus on specialty coffee production to escape the volatility of commodity prices and improve their family’s quality of life. These days, 80% of the farm is planted with “exotic” varieties- gesha, sidra, yellow bourbon, bourbon aji and obligón- and the remaining 20% maintains traditional varieties. The Tabi trees at El Diviso were planted six years ago & there are about 5,000 tabi trees- most have red cherries, but some produce yellow or even pink tabi cherries.This coffee was sourced by our friends at Shared Source. Michelle & Andrew, with their staff, do an excellent job with providing pricing transparency and develop lifelong relationships with their farming partners, which is why we love to work with them.
