Caravela Coffee

Hasta La Vista 2011... Bienvenido 2012

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:25:00 -0500

It has definitely been another wild and exciting year for all of us!

Coffee prices continue to surf a volatile market affected by climate challenges and macro-economic shocks. On the bright side, coffee quality is improving in Colombia as producers learn how to control and prevent roya problems of years past, but constant rain continues to make drying difficult and the increased planting of Castillo will be something that will keep all of us busy. Volumes are still not at historical levels, though we are encouraged by the entrepreneurial spirit of some of our best producers.

We challenged ourselves by working with a large farm, Hacienda El Roble in Santander, an organic farm with a interesting collection of both heirloom and rare varieties—more than 60! Together with El Roble’s young and energetic management team we helped implement better picking, new depulpers, advanced solar drying, and better storage, and we saw consistent 4-5 point improvements in average cup-scores. We continue to learn with them as they experiment and collect information at every level of production. Look forward to our 2nd Cupping Extravaganza event in March, where we will cup the best of the rare varieties that Hacienda El Roble has to offer.

This year Caravela began to import coffee from new origins, Guatemala and Bolivia, and strengthened our existing relationships in Ecuador. For 2012 we expect to further develop these as we also begin new programs with exceptional producers in El Salvador and Honduras.

Pesebre in the home of Manuel Melenge, Timbio, Cauca

In 2011, Virmax started PECA, an education and training program for coffee producers in Huila and Cauca. The results of this project are already being seen with improved coffee quality and consistency from the producers of the pilot project.

After 3 years of hard work and investment at Belgravia, our experimental coffee farm in Popayan, it will produce its first harvest early in 2012. We are very excited as the lessons learned on this farm will help us provide better advice in the field. Belgravia’s crop of 10 different varieties will be primarily used as a source of seeds for our producer-partners.

We have also begun the process of starting an independent US based non-profit called the Coffee Grower Education Project with the mission of “devising, implementing and otherwise supporting educational programs to teach coffee farmers enhanced agricultural techniques that will assist them in improving their livelihoods by producing higher-quality, environmentally sustainable harvests.” Our long-term intention is to take what we are learning from PECA and apply it to other producing countries while providing an avenue for donor individuals, companies and organizations to participate in the process. You’ll hear more about this in the coming months. Let us know if you’re interested in contributing or participating!

On the technical front, we’ve been diligently working on our new IT system. In the near future expect some exciting changes in the way that we all share cupping results, producer information, interact with your position, releases, invoices and more.

And you thought 2011 was exciting? 2012 will surely be even better! Thanks for your support and encouragement in the past year; you can count on us to continue to do our best to establish and nourish solid partnerships as we embark on new adventures in 2012.

Best Wishes,
Virmax / Caravela

Happy Holidays 2011

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:13:58 -0500

Happy Holidays 2011

Stumptown Coffee: Colombia Source Trip

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:08:25 -0500

Stumptown Coffee: Colombia Source Trip

Video Tour of Hacienda El Roble

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:43:00 -0500

Video Tour of Hacienda El Roble

This video from RCN in Colombia (in Spanish) gives a tour of Hacienda El Roble in Mesa de los Santos, in Santander, Colombia.

The video highlights the shade canopy, diversity of plants and systems that allow this large farm to be Organic, Rainforest Alliance and Bird Friendly certified.

It also shows some of the recent improvements in picking, selection, processing that Virmax has helped to bring about. You will also new solar drying beds and improvements in quality control practices.

This coffee is available for the second semester harvest in Colombia, let us know if you are interested in Hacienda El Roble.

Coffee Garden at Hacienda El Roble

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:27:00 -0500

Video of Coffee Garden at Hacienda El Roble

This video from RCN in Colombia (in Spanish) takes a tour of the coffee variety garden (72 varieties) at Hacienda El Roble in Mesa de los Santos, Santander, Colombia.

It also shows the selection of old ripe coffee cherries by the pickers at Hacienda El Roble and one four-legged picker who likes to help out.

Caravela Coffee has a New Address

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 08:33:52 -0400

Please note that as of November 1, 2011, Caravela Coffee has a new address:

Caravela Coffee

106C S. Greensboro St.

Carrboro, NC 27410

t: 919.636.5861

f: 919.338.8084

Please take note and update your records.

Gimme Explains Relationships

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 22:44:46 -0400

Here’s a link to the Whole Foods NYC Cooking Blog with a Producer Profile: Gimme Coffee. In this profile, Colleen Anunu from Gimme explains their relationship with Finca San Luis in Tolima and what it means to commit to a relationship in coffee.

Break Seal, Open Container

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:19:11 -0400

Break Seal, Open Container

Continental Terminals NJ

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:40:28 -0400

Last week I visited Continental Terminals NJ in Jersey City, NJ. Here is a link to a photoset taken from the warehouse. Continental is rather large with 5 warehouses in New Jersey, one in Norfolk VA, one in Charleston, SC.

Coffee is received in the primary warehouse and after a staging period is allocated to one of the 5 warehouses. When you consider that they can take a consolidated order of many 1 bag marks, it is remarkable that they can receive an order at 3pm and have it ready to pick up the following day at 1pm.

Besides meeting the people that we work with and seeing how the operation is run, I went with the request to see if we can have cardboard corners used for the shipments of Perdura boxes, so the straps don’t crush the boxes and cause the bricks to loose their seal. They agreed to try it out and our first test run should happen this week.

So here’s a look at a warehouse that you may have done business with, but probably will never go and visit.

Ecuador Rising article in Roast Magazine

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:59:43 -0400

In the September/October 2011 issue of Roast Magazine, Alejandro Cadena from Virmax explains the current state and future prospects of specialty coffee in Ecuador.

Coffee Cherry Life Cycle

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:04:42 -0400

Coffee Cherry Life Cycle

“Colombia’s Coffee Crisis” from the New York...

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:09:32 -0400

“Colombia’s Coffee Crisis” from the New York Times.

History of the Andino Especial group

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:33:50 -0500

History of the Andino Especial group

Cupping Cousins: The Story of Geisha Cerro Azul

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:17:25 -0500

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting “Cerro Azul”, the farm where our exclusive Colombian Geisha is grown, and it’s sister farm “La Esperanza”, both located in the municipality of Trujillo, Valle del Cauca, in the Western Cordillera of Colombia’s Andean mountain range. I toured the farms with Miguel Jimenez, the General Manager of Cafe Granja La Esperanza.

Cerro Azul

Trujillo is about 2 hours north of Cali by car, travelling along side the Cauca river. What begins as a normal Colombian highway with all its normal conditions turns into a pristine, newly laid asphalt leading towards the town of Rio Frio. 15 minutes further lies Trujillo, a nice, small town nestled in a small valley, with a large central park and a number of Art Deco style buildings.

We met Miguel in the central park and followed him up a side road through pine trees and coffee estates until we reached the gates of the “La Esperanza” farm. Once we reached the farmhouse and had a chance to turn around, the central park of Trujillo with its church steeple, the foothills of the Western Cordillera and the Valle del Cauca in the distance made a stunning, yet peaceful landscape.

View of the town of Trujillo from “La Esperanza”

Both farms, “La Esperanza” and “Cerro Azul” are owned by Rigoberto and Luis Eduardo Herrera, two brothers who come from a traditional coffee family. Their grandfather owned a very large Hacienda in the region of Trujillo that was slowly sold off over decades. The Herreras left Colombia in the 1970’s to study engineering abroad but returned in 1998 with the dream of reconstructing their grandfather’s Hacienda and getting back into coffee farming.

They first bought “La Esperanza”, which is located very close where their grandfather’s original farm was located and now serves as their base in the region. This farm is 100% organic, with trees of Colombia, Castillo and Caturra, plus 14,000 trees of Organic Geisha which are not yet in production. They later bought 4 other farms in Trujillo and Caicedonia (Northeast of Trujillo), and in 2005 leased a coffee farm in Boquete, Panama. In total they now have 6 farms (5 in Colombia, 1 in Panama) and a total of 213 hectares planted with coffee.

Organic Geisha Plantings

They have decided to focus exclusively on specialty coffee, with the majority of their production at the moment being organically grown and certified. Additional to their organic coffee, they are experimenting with many different varieties which they have planted on different parcels and fincas including: Geisha, Organic Geisha, Moka, Bourbon (Red, Yellow and Tekizik), Laurina, Pacamara, San Bernardo and Pache, in addition to the Organic Caturra which makes up the majority of Finca La Esperanza. They are expecting to have first lots of their different varietals in the 2nd semester harvest of this year.

Miguel Jimenez is the General Manager of all the farms, including the one in Panama. Originally from Bogota, his office is based in Cali and he travels everyday of the week to visit the different fincas. Once every 45 days he goes to Panama. Miguel spent 9 years with Cundicafe, one of the FNC-backed cooperatives, working as an agronomist in the department of Cundinamarca. After that he spent several years managing a large organic coffee farm in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, near the Caribbean coast. “It was magical” was how he described his time at that farm. On one side is the snow-capped peak and on the other is the beaches of the Caribbean sea… this is the Colombia Garcia-Marquez writes about.

Miguel Jimenez

After his time in the Sierra Nevada, Miguel moved to “La Rochela”, another large farm only a few km down from “La Esperanza” and that used to be organic certified. In 2006 Miguel moved to Cafe Granja La Esperanza and has been the man behind the strategy of the company ever since. To say he is qualified is an understatement as he has spent his career on the leading edge of coffee in Colombia. Miguel himself has a farm in Cundinamarca on which he grows Moka entirely for export to Asia. Virmax first met Miguel in 2002 when he was at “La Rochela”, exporting that coffee to the US from 2003 to 2005.

The farm in Panama is called “La Carleida” and is situated next door to the famous Esmeralda farm owned by the Peterson family. The success of the Geisha varietal encouraged Miguel and the Herrera brothers to try planting this variety in their native Colombia. Their idea was to build on the experience gathered by them in Panama and maximize it with what Colombia’s unique terroir could bring to the Geisha varietal. To this end they decided to look for a farm close enough to “La Esperanza” and with the ideal Geisha growing conditions in terms of altitude, night time temperature, soil composition, access to light, situation to maritime winds, etc. Luckily they found the right place just minutes away from their “La Esperanza” farm.

Miguel Jimenez, Cerro Azul from Caravela Coffee on Vimeo.

Click link above or see earlier video post.

Video - (In Spanish) Miguel Jimenez explaining how the farm was started. Warning, video taken while traveling from La Esperanza to Cerro Azul in a Willy’s, not good for those with motion sickness.

The “Cerro Azul” farm was purchased in December 2006 and encompasses an area of 20 hectares between 1,700 m.a.s.l. and 1,950 m.a.s.l. At that time it was a working coffee farm planted with Caturra trees. In September 2007 they planted 35,000 Geisha plants using all of the knowledge that they acquired at “La Carleida” in Panama. Where did they get 35,000 Geisha plants in Colombia?? Good question: they brought the seeds from Panama themselves, from their own plants. So when they do a side-by-side cupping with their Panamanian and Colombian Geishas, they are cupping cousins.

Unlike most large Colombian farms, which focus exclusively on volume, “Cerro Azul” is managed very profesionally: each lot of Geisha is meticulously cared after. From the distance at which the trees are planted to the custom levels of fertilizer that is applied to each plant. “Cerro Azul” pays their pickers by the day, not by the sack or by weight like is customary in most Colombian farms. This gives them the incentive to take their time and pick only the ripest cherries. Overripe cherries or defects are picked and kept separate to avoid contamination or give fuel to the Broca. The farm managers take the time to train each individual picker, explaining the reasons why it is so important to pick only the ripe cherries, making sure that each picker is part of the team. The average picker at “Cerro Azul” picks an average of 25 kg of cherry per day (which is equivalent to only 5 kg of dry parchment). That means that to produce one 70-kg bag of green coffee you need to add up the harvest of 20 pickers. This is expensive, but it is the only way to guarantee quality.

Only Ripes from Caravela Coffee on Vimeo.

Click link above or see earlier video post.

Video - Alejandro’s favorite picker, doing his thing, picking only the ripest cherries.

Despite being towards the end of the harvest, these Geisha trees were flush with ripe cherries to pick. One of products of having multiple harvests in a year is that coffee trees in Colombia have all stages of coffee cherry production on one branch. From buds, to flowers, green cherries to ripe, this beautiful occurrence makes picking only ripes difficult and time consuming.

Once cherries are picked, they are taken to the central processing facility located at “La Esperanza”. Each Geisha lot is marked and cataloged separately. It is depulped, washed and fermented separately. It goes through a solar patio pre-drying for up to three days, then it is fully dried in a micro-silo that is only used for Geisha.

When fully sun dried, Miguel says that the “Cerro Azul” has a refreshing mint note that only the best Colombians exhibit. However, at this point they are not fully sun drying the Geisha Cerro Azul as the weather during the harvest was very humid and Geisha beans, because of their lower density, absorb moisture very easily. However, they are experimenting with different solar driers so that in the future they can produce a fully sun-dried Geisha. I personally would love to try the fully sun dried Geisha because the mint note could be very, very interesting and help identify Colombian Geisha as distinct and unique.

Parchment stored in GrainPro liners.

Once dry, the Geisha parchment is stored in 40 kg jute bags with GrainPro liners inside. Each of those bags is cupped by their cupper and also by Virmax to ensure optimal quality. The coffee is then rested for a minimum of 30 days until it is taken to La Primavera, Virmax’s dry mill, where each individual lot is milled and immediately packed in nitrogen-flushed, vacuum sealed Perdura ® boxes. All of this attention manifests itself in the delicate characteristics of Geisha Cerro Azul.

Beautiful flowers of the Geisha variety in Colombia.

The harvest that is ending is the first one of Geisha Cerro Azul. The Organic Geisha is currently experiencing its first flowering and should be ready for the first cupping towards the end of the year. The flowering of all crops looked really good. The weather in the north of the Valle del Cauca has been nice and dry for the past few weeks, so we are hopeful that the fall harvest will be bountiful. It looks promising.

We’ve got access to a limited supply of Geisha Cerro Azul. If you are interested, please contact me. Photos of the farm can be seen in Caravela’s flickr account (www.flickr.com/photos/caravelacoffee).

Miguel Jimenez, Geisha Cerro Azul

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:12:24 -0500

Miguel Jimenez, Geisha Cerro Azul

Only Ripes

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:11:00 -0500

Only Ripes

Brew Down II

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:25:31 -0500

If you are in the RDU area, I’ll be judging the Brew Down II competition at Counter Culture tomorrow night. Proceeds go to the organic soil building project with the Organica cooperative in Popayan. Stop by.

Farewell 2010, Welcome 2011

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:13:39 -0500

It’s time to wrap up 2010 and say hello to 2011. As we do this, we’ll take a moment to reflect on 2010… and to look forward to 2011.

Our first year has fortunately been a success. From our launch at Tertulia 2010 at SCAA in Anaheim through the end of December, we’ve been able to accomplish what we set out to do: find efficiencies in the export/import process while establishing a transparent connection between growers and roasters, creating value for all those involved.

However, we faced a number of challenges in 2010:

Lower than expected coffee volume in the first and second semester harvests, due to a wild climate and to roya and broca infestations
A rising and volatile C market
The challenges of buying quality coffee in a rising market
Increased value of the Colombian Peso to the US Dollar.

Despite these challenges, we’ve been able to establish new partnerships between North American buyers and Colombian and Ecuadorean growers. A number of customers traveled with us during the year, visiting established relationships, or starting to develop new ones. And learning about the intricate process and commitment to quality of the Virmax buying model. We encourage all of you who couldn’t make it down to Colombia last year to travel down this year. Don’t forget that the WBC this year will be held in Bogota from June 2-5!

View from the top of Finca Cerro Azul (Trujillo, Valle del Cauca), at 1950 m.a.s.l.

Looking Forward…

We start 2011 with a bang! Our Finca San Luis Organic this past weekend was selected as one of the Good Food Awards Coffee Finalists!

I’m back in Colombia visiting some of our producers to see how the upcoming 1st Semester harvest is looking. From what I’ve seen already in central Cauca, some growers will not be producing any coffee as they preferred to plant new trees or prune their existing ones to avoid having to deal with coffee leaf rust. Others will be having a harvest, but they won’t have the usual volume as the flowering was not optimal due to heavy rains during the 2nd half of 2010. In east Cauca, Huila and Tolima the weather leading to the 1st semester harvest has been more favorable and therefore growers are expecting good volumes and an earlier start of the crop.

It’s too early to say how the 2nd semester harvest will be. As I write these lines, growers in several regions are telling us that coffee trees have been flowering these days. So if weather permits it, the 2nd semester harvest will start earlier than usual. But we’ll have to wait until May/June to see how volumes will look like then.

Most analysts predict prices to remain at current levels or above due to fundamental issues such as the predicted deficit in world coffee production vs demand and the increased influence of funds and other financial players in the market. This environment will pose great challenges both on the producer and the roaster sides. For us the challenge will lie mainly in the following three situations:

In order to entice growers to deliver their coffee to us and subject their lot to our rigorous quality control process, we must offer a quality bonus versus the market price sufficient for them to decide that it is worth their extra time and effort.
Growers’ loyalty to the Relationship model and their long time customers will be tested as the temptation to sell to less demanding buyers at a better price than they achieved last year for their best product, sets in. Mediocrity could have its way in these conditions.
The rising market and increased volatility is creating a difficult and risky environment for us to write forward contracts well ahead of time. These contracts after all allow us to work with our grower partners to commit the necessary volumes and qualities.

Throughout the year we will work with our grower partners and with you in order to proactively find solutions that are beneficial to the whole chain. We will continue to monitor the market, growing conditions, harvest forecasts, etc… and keep you informed of how this situation is evolving.

We’re looking forward to be able to catch up with all of you at:

Coffee Fest in Chicago in February;
The SCAA in Houston in April, and seeing as many of our customers as we can fit in the waking day
The World Barista Championship in Bogota in June, where we will be hosting our Tertulia 2011. We are planning a few origin excursions as well as plenty of cuppings and maybe a party or two.

In 2011 we are also studying the expansion of our coffee sourcing into other regions in Colombia, as well as other producing countries, with potential leads in Guatemala, Bolivia and Peru. If this is something you are interested in or have an opinion about, please let us know.

Geisha flowers at Finca Cerro Azul

And, of course, we are looking forward to a full year of importing and distribution with increased volumes but with the same attention to detail and dedicated customer service.

We aim to become your import / origin partner by working with you to help you reach your goals. We would love to hear from you: Where can we improve in 2011? How can we expand our partnership with you? What would you like to see us do in 2011?

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions and wish you a prosperous and healthy 2011.

Photo

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:01:43 -0500

Trip Report 2nd Semester Harvest 2010

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:04:00 -0500

The second semester harvest in Colombia is under way! I was in Huila and Santander a few weeks ago to see how the harvest was looking and to meet up with the guys from Virmax. I traveled with Alejandro Cadena of Virmax and started my visit with Steve Ford of Ritual Coffee Roasters and finished with Jeremy Tooker and Tal Mor from Four Barrel Coffee Roasters, both based in San Francisco, CA.

We started by going to La Plata, Huila and visiting the Occicafe growers association. Virmax has a cupping station set up inside the association’s warehouse where members deliver coffee. Virmax does a very strict quality control (physical and cup analysis) and only buys coffee that meets or exceeds the minimum physical requirements and displays a minimum set of cup characteristics. Alexis Villamil is the Virmax analyst stationed at the Occicafe warehouse. In addition to purchasing coffee, Alexis also visits the farmers and gives agricultural extension advice to the small coffee farmers that work with Virmax in the region.

Occicafe Growers Association in La Plata, Huila

With Alexis, we visited Finca Nueva Orquidea, the new farm of Cerbulo Yara. Cerbulo has been delivering coffee to Virmax for a few years and has formed a relationship with Ritual Coffee Roasters.

Cerbulo Yara

Then we moved on to Pitalito in the southern part of the department. Pitalito is the second largest city in Huila and it is where Virmax has a buying warehouse. Pitalito is surrounded by coffee farms, being right at the center of a U-shaped coffee region. Thank to its unique location, Pitalito is where many of the growers associations we work with in south Huila deliver their parchment. During this trip we also visited the farms of Remigio Quinayas and Omar Viveros, two more farmers with direct relationships with Ritual.

Slopes of Remigio Quinayas’ farm

From Pitalito we traveled north to the town of Gigante and the El Desarrollo growers association. El Desarrollo produces the coffees under the Matambo brand. During our visit we met with the leaders of the group in their facilities in town, where they also have a full cupping lab.

Edilfonso Yara at the El Desarrollo warehouse

That evening I went back to Pitalito and spent the next day at the Virmax warehouse with Luis Samboni, one of the Virmax quality analysts stationed in Pitalito, to watch and participate in the buying process from beginning to end. Unfortunately I was there during the very first pickings and only a few lots were delivered. But these lots were good enough to be purchased.

Click here for a photo set of the step by step process of the purchase of lot PIT-1405

The next day I met up with Alejandro and the guys from Four Barrel. We went to visit the Andino Especial growers association in Bruselas, Huila, a municipality not very far from Pitalito. We visited the farms of Helio Rico, former president of the association and his neighbor, David Burbano from whom Four Barrel had recently received a farmer lot that they were very happy with.

Helio Rico on his farm

David Burbano and his family

After spending the night in Pitalito, the next day we returned to the Andino warehouse for a day of cupping and buying… but unfortunately, the power was out in town and the generator wasn’t sufficient to power the operation. We met with members of the Andino group who were gathering for an association meeting.

Andino Especial warehouse in Bruselas

With our new-found time and in the Colombian habit of fitting one more thing in the plan, we decided to visit San Agustin and the farm of Alejandro Ortega before speeding off to Neiva to catch our flight to Bogota.

Alejandro Ortega in his beneficio

The following day we flew from Bogota to Bucaramanga in Santander and then drove one hour to Hacienda El Roble. This is a large, Organic, Rainforest Alliance, Bird Friendly, certified farm with which Virmax has begun to work with providing technical assistance to improve coffee quality. We stayed at the hotel on the farm, ate wonderful meals, and toured the farm on horseback.

Horseback under the canopy

We toured the farm’s coffee varietal garden with 40+ different coffee varieties and we cupped some of the very early harvest lots with Katerinne Gutierrez, the Virmax analyst who is working this harvest on the farm to help with quality improvements. We saw their roasting operation where they roast coffee from the farm for the domestic market. Tal was able to give some advice on roasting, which was well received. After that we headed out to the airport and back to Bogota.

Osvaldo Acevedo in the Hacienda El Roble varietal garden.

Observations and Analysis:

In Huila, coffee rust is still apparent and a concern for all coffee farmers. Some farmers are doing a better job of controlling the fungus than others by applying systemic fungicides such as Alto-100 and regular applications of copper oxide. Some farmers, whether for lack of funds or misinformation are choosing to ride it out. With falling leaves and dying branches, these trees are being pruned and won’t produce for at least eighteen months.

Early indications are that the second semester harvest has better physical and cup quality than the first. And while volumes will be better, we are not expecting a return to a “normal” Colombian output. We are not expecting any significant volume out of Cauca. In Huila and Tolima, this harvest will be short, it started late and constant rain in southern Colombia is not helping with harvesting or drying. But improved quality is encouraging.

For the future, many farmers are following FNC lead by planting Castillo trees, with hopes for reduced disease and increased volume, but at the cost of cup score potential. Lower yield, higher risk varieties, such as Caturra, Typica or Bourbon, require more attention but have the ability to produce better quality farmer lots.

Increased rains during the months of August & September caused a late flowering that combined with pruning and replanting are the ingredients for a later than usual first semester harvest in 2011. We will have to see the end of the 2nd semester harvest and how the weather progresses during the next few months to have a better idea of volumes for the 1st half of 2011.

In Santander, Hacienda El Roble is beautiful, well organized and has great potential. First steps were a reorganization of the farm into different lots based on topography, micro climate and coffee variety. Interns from coffee specific programs in technical schools were brought in to lead the picking. Physical improvements were made in processing and drying. And a Virmax quality control technician has been living at the farm overseeing quality improvements and conducting daily cuppings that help provide feedback on the ground.

Results are encouraging, picked coffee cherries have much better ripe consistency and the processing improvements are reducing defects. It is still very early in the harvest in Santander, and since this is the first year of this new partnership, Virmax is establishing the baseline. Preliminary cuppings are positive and we are anxious to see what we’ll have to offer from Hacienda El Roble during this crop.

Badi Bradley