Best of Antioquia is a competition hosted by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros Colombianos (FNC), the most advanced and ambitious NGO working on behalf of a national specialty coffee sector anywhere in the world. Colombia exports the second highest volume of arabica coffee on earth after Brazil, and it’s not controversial to observe that the qualities exported are categorically higher and more diverse than almost any country of comparison. Colombia’s 12 million bag export average is achieved by over half a million farms averaging about 1.5 hectares apiece, which is a staggering level of small-farm excellence across the board. After almost 45 years of cupping and buying as much Colombia coffee as we can take, we are still amazed annually and what can be found.
The goal of the FNC’s regional competitions is to facilitate this discovery for buyers. Like micro-Cup of Excellence contests, entries from throughout a single department are screened by Federación cuppers and then the top-scoring finalists are presented to a select global audience with full traceability and an open-pricing auction platform. Often the FNC interviews the producers live online while the auction is underway, letting them show their farms and tell their stories to the global audience.
Cielo Ruy Bolivar Gonzalez’ coffee was one of Royal’s purchases at this year’s auction. Cielo, along with her husband and 3 children, manage 3 hectares of coffee near Caicedo. Cielo is 35 years old, practically a child compared to the global average age of small coffee farmers (which is still in the 60s), but has almost 20 years of experience picking and processing coffee. She and her family purchased the land for El Naranjo 8 years ago and began production with 300 coffee trees. Little by little the family transformed the 3-hectare property to a high-production farm flush with 4-5 year old healthy coffee trees, which she is constantly renovating parcel by parcel. Cielo had never entered a quality competition before but was convinced to enter this one after a local buyer insisted she do so. She has always been happy living and working in the field, but now feels she can also be proud of what she produces, having been recognized in this way through the competition.
Processing at El Naranjo is carried out entirely by Cielo and her family, with the help of only 1 or 2 neighbors. Cherry is hand picked at peak ripeness and then left to ferment as whole fruit for a period of 24 hours. Once this first fermentation step is complete the cherry is depulped and fermented again for 2 days, washed, and taken to the family’s covered dryers to dry.
Cielo and her family of 5 are members of the local Cooperativa de Caficultores de Salgar, which maintains a collection point in Caicedo, and which extends a lot of necessary services to their members to support their development. The cooperative also sponsors individual growers’ participation in department-wide or national competitions like Best of Antioquia.
