The Ventura family have been growing coffee for over five generations.

The coffee farming tradition began when their grandfather started growing coffee in 1894, at a farm called Finca Rabanales. Over a hundred years later, the family purchased Finca El Durazno in 2012. Rafael & Maria Elena (picture) are two of the five proprietors of the farm, and are active in its management.

In 2012, Finca El Durazno did not have a single coffee plant - in fact the land was mainly used for forestry. Although the Ventura family have been coffee farming for over 120 years, the farm is very young as coffee was only planted during the 2013-2014 harvest and 2018 was the farm’s first normal production harvest. The changing climate proved challenging, with the stress of the plants resulting in a lower yield. It rained a lot, which also led to more fungus and leaf rust. The main challenge for the season was to pick coffee at it’s optimal Brix level.

When we asked Rafael what differences he noticed at Finca El Durazno compared to the other family farms, he replied that he had to forget everything he knew about coffee and start fresh. He loves about coffee that there is always something to learn.

This lot from Finca El Durazno is a white honey process. During the harvest, after coffee picking is finished (around 4 pm), the freshly picked and sorted coffee is loaded into a truck and transported to Finca Rabanales for processing. The truck arrives around 1-2
am, and the cherries rest over night to then immediately be pulped and passed through a
demucilager in the morning to remove the excess mucilage.

The freshly washed coffee parchment then moves to the patio via a channel where it is dried in the sun for an average of 8 to 13 days. The coffee is checked regularly with a moisture reader and once it's reached its ideal moisture level, it is packed and stored in their warehouse. There is a guardiola or dryer on site, so when the weather is drizzly, the dryer is utilised and the coffee is dried at 24-35 egrees Celsius. This process is a mix of using the dryers, and resting for a few hours, and then heating up again.