Planadas has become in recent years an important agricultural hub mainly regarding coffee production, becoming one of the top coffee producers of Colombia. This municipality was established in 1932 by the Spanish Jesuit priest Fermin Larrazabal who at the time guided a group of people from Huila and Antioquia to stablish a settlement in a plateau near the river Atá, which now a day where Planadas is located. Due to his name, Fermin, and in relation to the world-famous San Fermin festivities in Pamplona (Spain) is that this brand gets its name. Both Fermin Larrazabal and the festivities embody aspects which describe the producers from this area: audacity, courage, joy, and togetherness. This region su ered heavily from the internal conflict of Colombia and the guerrilla groups, but even though with this situation the coffee farmers of the area kept pushing forward and with resilience were able to keep producing amazing quality coffee. After the peace sign agreement of 2016, it helped bring some tranquility to Planadas and became an inflection point where the production of coffee increased. This municipality is surrounded by mountains of the central cordillera of Colombia and full of creeks and rivers that go down to the Atá River, having great nutritious soils for the production of coffee. Caravela has been purchasing coffee in the area in direct relationship with producers since 2007, and in 2013 the brand San Fermin was born with initially 30 producers contributing to it.

“San Fermin is coffee with pronounced citric acidity, sweetness of panela, chocolate and red fruit notes, with a medium body and balanced after taste.”

Contributing Producers

The producers of San Fermin are resilient and driven, and at the same time joyful and family driven. It is common to visit them and see they work on the farm as a family with every member contributing in some aspect of the farm such drying, keeping the records of production, administration and more. This joint venture creates very tight bond and unity in the families, who work conjunctly to improve the quality of life. Traditionally the varieties they started working with where Castillo, Typica, Caturra and Colombia but now a day the varieties that are seen more in order of greater to lesser volume are Castillo, Colombia, Caturra, Typica, Bourbon, Tabi, Gesha and Catimore. Since San Fermin started, the life of the producers has changed for the best with the production of high-quality coffee, having now a day better quality of life and living conditions. Regarding the farm, they have made changes such as with di erent varieties, seeing an improvement in the phytosanitary and nutritional conditions of the trees, improvements in the wet mill and drying areas. Some of the producers have even bought more land to have a bigger production. With the recent e ects of climate change and the heavy rains of 2021 onwards, the producers keep their resilience and strive to produce good-quality coffee adapting to these new conditions. These coffee farmers have started for a time now to implement environmentally friendly practices at their farms and to produce their coffees. With for example planting native trees for shade but also for minimizing their carbon footprint and seeing a water filtration system to treat the wastewater of the wet mill. The PECA educator of the area has been accompanying them to always improve their quality and for the implementation of sustainable and environmentally friendly practices, with most of the producers having an organic certification.

The coffee producers of San Fermin begin their process by carefully picking the ripe cherries and some of them, float the cherries to remove any defect cherries that are less dense and foreign material, such as leaves. Nowadays, most producers leave the cherries without water, and beans are left to ferment for 30 to 36 hours in a traditional, tiled, covered tub, in open air. The beans are then washed twice with a small amount of water to clean them. They are taken to the drying are, which can range from rooftop patios with retractable roofs called Casa Heldas, parabolic covered patios, or parabolic covered drying beds. Depending on the farm’s climate, drying can take between 15 to 30 days. Some producers opt for pre-drying in shade, which can take anywhere from 8 hours to 8 days, to drain any remaining water from the beans. Once dried, the final parchment coffee is sometimes stored on the farm for one to two weeks. The grower takes his coffee to the purchasing station in Planadas where it is going to be analyzed by the Quality Analyst to determine its quality. A representative sample will go through a rigorous physical analysis first, measuring the moisture level, water activity, and physical defects. It then undergoes a sensory analysis, which ultimately determines its quality grade. From there, the parchment coffee is sent to the dry mill in Armenia to be processed and then sent to port.