The Circasia farm has been around long before Reinel and his family moved onto the land. The farm was previously owned by Reinel’s father-in-law, and he initially moved there because he wanted to spend more time with his now-wife.

He used to say that one day he would buy the farm and manage it himself and his wife’s family would all laugh, thinking he was joking, until the day he did it.

This place is truly a family business where everyone plays a role. The roles have changed over time especially now that Reinel is a little older and his son has grown up.

Reinel and his wife María are in charge of drying the coffee, a process which on this farm normally takes around 20 days. Reinel’s son and daughter-in-law take the role of looking after the coffee lots and post-harvest processing.

Reinel says that “my family have given a large part of their lives to this farm and now it is truly a part of us”. This land has allowed the family to sustain themselves as well as prove that successful small-scale coffee producers do exist.  

This is the 1st year we’re procuring coffee directly from the Perez Family. However, it’s not the first time we’ve had their coffee in our range. We bought from their early harvest for the Christmas Coffee, and now it's from their late harvest, that we just got in.

Reinel and his family are also part of a group of farmers that shares an organic certification. In Colombia, each farm needs to be individually approved for its practices, but every certification only allows them to sell a limited amount of coffee.

This is done to prevent people from adding coffees from other farms, that aren’t certified. The problem with this is that the different harvests vary in quantity and sometimes they’ll have less than the organic quota and sometimes they’ll have more, which results in them having to sell their coffee as conventional even though it is organic. 

To avoid this issue, they form organic associations that share their quotas; and the Perez’ are part of the association we know as the Planadas. 

We use the Planadas blend mostly for wholesale customers and for our subscriptions. The Planadas is a clean, sweet and balanced organic coffee, that has great yellow fruit and a zesty flavour profile.

This year we wanted to develop that relationship by highlighting one of the farmers in the group.

The choice fell on the Perez family. The coffee, like the Planadas, is very clean and sweet, but it also carries a very distinct flavour of orange zest and blossoms.