Before tasting this delicious coffee, we want to tell you about its origin.
We are a couple of "coffee believers", Daniel (Systems Engineer) and Angela (Professional Nurse), in 2018 we made the decision to put aside our professions to immerse ourselves in the vast world of agriculture and coffee.
Daniel has a very particular way of presenting new projects,and Angela, although she is a difficult audience, usually ends up approving those projects.
The conversation of "let's go to the farm" began in 2017 as an innocent suggestion that ended up in a "there is not even a chance to do that" by Angela, the person who says that it’s easy to leave the profession you’ve been working on for years, and leave what you know how to do, to adventure in an abyss of uncertainty, is just lying lol.
At the beginning of the year 2018, Daniel continued reading and researching about agriculture and coffee in silence.
Long story short, we arrived at the Playa Rica family farm, in a town called Anserma in the coffee triangle of the department of Caldas; this farm has been in Daniel's maternal family for generations, but since the death of his grandfather in 1998, no family member had responsibly taken charge of the farm's own activities, therefore the farm was in very poor conditions and circumstantially in 2017, Daniel's family turned to him for help.
This project began as a way to restore and recover a farm, look for opportunities in agriculture, learn about crops, fruits, trees, little did we know about the thousand opportunities found in the production, processing and transformation of coffee, we took a pleasant surprise and we understood that we were doing something right when we were fortunate to win a silver cup in the Yara Champion Caldas contest in 2019, just one year after arriving at the farm.
We’ve always thought that people who find their passion in life are destined to be successful while walking towards professional and personal development, for that reason we feel that we have been advancing in giant steps on this path, and no, it has not been easy, but when you have only one option and passion in your heart, you grow surprisingly fast.
So, how is Bruno born?
Bruno was born the year 2021 supplying a need as coffee growers, the thing is that being immersed in the world of coffee is discovering the absences that exist, for example, in the knowledge of the taste of the cup of coffee that you are producing.
After realizing that the product we have is very good, we began to look for ways to transform it, test it and improve it, we were surprised when we knew that there was only one entity in the region offering the service of “try your cup of coffee” to coffee growers, and yes, the best things are born when it comes to satisfying needs, so, can we do it?
We then began studying about processing, fermentation, drying, roasting, cupping, threshing of natural processed coffee (which seems like an extreme sport), grinding, and the other vast universe: Coffee preparation, we discovered that there are barista world cups, filtered coffee world cups, cupping and tasting world cups, etc.
We discovered that some practices in coffee farming today, are done more by tradition than by background, we began to change this mentality and "tradition" little by little looking for an improvement, we began to worry about a dignified salary for our workers, to take care of our water sources, we took care in controlling weeds with a lawn mower, and therefore we took care of birds, bees and native plants, while doing those changes, we came across the term “Café Sensible” (“Sensitive Coffee”) that speaks of how “most of the coffee we consume was produced, marketed, roasted to get the most out of the coffee, without taking into account aspects of sustainability or flavor quality.
Specialty coffee, on the other hand, focuses on the flavor of the coffee, eliminating defective green coffee beans and obtaining excellent tasting coffee. The #cafesensible concept is a coffee that, in addition to its excellent taste, is accessible to all people who are sensitive to how their coffee was financed, harvested, produced, marketed, transported, packaged, roasted and prepared. Regenerating the economic and environmental system, positively impacting the lives of all the people involved in the coffee chain.” - Kim Ossenblok.
We felt identified and wanted Bruno to be a sensitive coffee. Our advantage is that we are crazy about learning, we are passionate about knowledge and finding more reasons to study motivates us every day.
Since 2018 we’ve been learning side by side with people willing to give us advice, teach us and guide us along this beautiful path, one of those people is Oscar, an agronomist who taught us that everything was not lost, after having received visits from people who suggested us to sell the farm because it was in ruins.
Ok, let's talk about crops!
We are located in the village of El Horro, Anserma, Caldas; At an altitude of 1,450 meters above sea level, our coffee variety is Castillo Naranjal.
What do we offer and sell at Bruno?
We offer and sell roasted coffee in 2 different processes: Washed and Natural.
What differences are there in the processes?
Washed process In this process, the beans are collected and then passed through a pulper that separates the pulp from the coffee beans. The beans, now shelled, are covered in a viscous substance known as mucilage or coffee honey.
In order for the mucilage to be completely removed, the grains are placed in fermentation tanks until they lose their mucous texture, then they are washed and dried. Characteristics: Lighter body, cleaner cup, floral flavors and bright acidity.
Natural Process
Very popular today, the dry process or dry benefit of coffee, also called natural coffee, preserves the beans as nature intended. In other words, it is dried with the husk and everything that belongs to it, as opposed to the washed process where the grain is pulped and washed.
It consists of letting the selected cherry coffee dry in the sun, until it looks like small black beans or “corozos”. It is the process that needs less water, hence it is also called "dry".
The already dry grain coating is then removed by threshing and then roasted.
Characteristics: Very fruity cups with liquor notes.
With this story and a freshly brewed cup of coffee in your hands, we want you to imagine the mountains of the western Andes mountain range, with the certainty that behind that cup of coffee are present some young people who want to innovate and dignify farm work, because we believe blindly that our future as entrepreneurs, and ours as a country, lies in the countryside and agriculture.
The world has taught us for many years that the goal of youth is to be professionals in some field, but, what if we also return to the origin, to the soil, to agriculture, we are doing it with a vision and with those tools that our profession and our university gave us, we are right now getting the best out of what the farms has to offers us.
Enjoy our coffee
By ANGELA RINCON
