San Agustin, a pre-Colombian civilisation that flourishes in the mountains where the Magdalena River is born, is the home to the Imbachi family.

Before being a coffee producer, Carlos Imbachi worked as a treasure hunter! He used to look for artefacts left by the native indigenous in San Agustin and sold them to collectors.

With the money he earned from doing this, he constructed a house in the vereda La Argentina with his family. In his new house, he started to grow coffee and other farm products. At first, he just picked the coffee, depulped it, washed it and sold it wet

At this stage, coffee wasn’t profitable for him: the money he received could only pay the workers with nothing left over for him.

As the years passed, he started drying his coffee on his farm, but he didn’t focus hugely on quality until he met Caravela (our sourcing partner for this coffee) almost ten years ago.

The Caravela team visited his farm and Carlos Imbachi began to change how he thought about about coffee. He realized that coffee did have a way of being profitable but it would involve improving his harvest and post-harvest practices.

After years of working hard to improve his processes and experimenting, Carlos has become an exceptional specialty coffee producer. He learned that by producing higher quality coffee he could make more money.

Carlos lives with his wife and his two youngest sons. Sonia, their oldest daughter is married and lives close to her father’s farm on her own coffee farm, continuing Carlos’ legacy.

Didier, Carlos’ oldest son chose to take the path of cupping and is currently the Quality Assurance Coordinator at Caravela.

Carlos’ coffee was awarded Coffee of the Year by the SCAA in 2009.

All images and information about this coffee and producers have been kindly shared by its importer, Caravela, and edited by us, Sample Coffee (unless linked to or credited otherwise).

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Our ‘sweet spot’ for opening each coffee bag and brewing its contents is during days ~15-35 post-roast date.

Learn more about our updated coffee aging recommendations.

Need any brewing tips?

Head to our brew guides and find your favourite filter method—or head straight to our single origin espresso recipe. If you have further questions, send us an email. We’re always keen to help.

 

Sourcing and ingredients

100% Caturra coffee beans, provided by Caravela and roasted by us on Gadigal land / Sydney.

Green coffee certified Rainforest Alliance.

Country grade: Unknown ?

Packaging

Bag: ABA Certified home compostable
Label: Recyclable
Valve (on bags larger than 250g): General waste
Coffee ordered online is shipped in a recyclable cardboard box

Brewing this coffee

We recommend brewing this coffee 15–49 days post-roast. If pre-ground, brew as soon as possible. Our advice on storing coffee.

Producer

Carlos Imbachi & Yolanda Samboni

Country

Colombia

Region

San Agustin

Altitude

1800m above sea level

Varietals

Caturra

Process

Washed

Body

Light

Acidity

Balanced

Tasting notes

Riesling, grape, orange

Roast style

Omni