Colombia Coffee: Wuchii Espresso

Cup Score:  84

Cup Profile: Milk Chocolate, Cocoa and Walnut Notes

Altitude: 1800-2000

Process: Washed

Location: Wuchii, Piendamo, Cauca

Varietal: Caturra

Wuchii is Siruma’s gateway to specialty coffee supporting more growers who show promise and are engaged in looking to produce specialty coffees. Caficauca supplier: The “cooperativa de caficultores del Cauca” – caficauca – was created in 1961 with the purpose of providing a fair and easy market access for growers. It was established by 297 coffee growers, who met at the city’s Municipal Theater and contributed $54,000 pesos as initial capital to start themselves.

It currently has over 3,000 associates, with the average farm size of 1.6Ha. The wuchii that has been carefully selected by Siruma is composed of an average of 85 growers per lot.

The coffee is fully wash processed with a fermentation time ranging from 16-19 hours, to then go into parabolic solar dryers that take an average time of 10 days to dry the coffee until target moisture is achieved of under 12% in parchment.

The coffee comes from Piendamó, Cajibio and Morales, that is commonly known as the Tabletop of Cauca. These towns provide an excellent elevation for coffee of 1,800-2,050masl, with very fertile land and a strong coffee economy. However, this strong coffee economy has come at a big expense. This area has a big history of armed conflict that started in the 1970s, implying most land owners were forced to plan illicit crops. Coffee has been a parallel economy that has been a constant clash with the illicit crops.