Colombia Marco Fidel Rodriguez: Sample Coffee Roasters

Colombia
Marco Fidel Rodriguez

We find flavours of peach, raspberry, white grape

Body Acidity

Marco Fidel Rodriguez is a farmer in Filo de Chillurco, in the Huila region of Colombia.

We first shared his coffee back in 2015, and are excited to have the opportunity to share it with subscribers once again.

Back in 2015, he’d only recently moved to selling his coffee to the specialty market, and started seeing the reward of higher prices, reflecting the higher quality.

He reinvested this money into further improving his farm, building himself a new secadero (parabolic drier) to handle large volumes. Previously he would run out of room and have to abandon a lot and sell it to the local cooperative wet, at a lower price.

An example of a parabolic drying bed

Parabolic drying beds are common in Colombia for high quality producers. Despite the fancy name, they’re essentially a curved cover over the drying beds, similar to a greenhouse.

He plans to renovate his wet mill, build bigger tanks and buy a refractometer to measure the sugar levels during fermentation to improve the quality of his lots and reduce the risk of having coffees rejected for over fermentation.

It’s great seeing farmers not just rewarded for producing high quality coffee, but also seeing them keep working to further improve.

Explore Colombia

Aaron Frey has a great post on his site FRSHGRND about visiting a farm in Colombia that’s worth checking out: Part one covers things at the farm and harvesting, and part two picks up with processing.

What’s with the AAA?

The coffee industry often uses extra letters after the name of a coffee to indicate extra details about the beans. The letters and what they signify often vary depending on the country.

Virmax, our importing partner in Colombia, grades each coffee when it’s delivered by farmers in each town. To be considered for export through Virmax, the coffee needs to score at least 83.

A coffee which scores 83 or 84 is given an A grade, those scoring 85-86 are AA, and anything 87 and above is given a AAA grade score, the highest possible quality.

The price paid to the farmer increases to reflect the grade.

How Stuff Works has a a short video about the grading and export process at Caravela which was filmed at Popayán, a town just west of Pitalito.

There’s also a great interview with Caravela about their processes in Colombia and how they work with farmers to improve quality at the Square Mile Roasters blog.

Sourcing and ingredients

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

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.

1:3
dose:yield
ratio

To brew on espresso, we recommend using 20g of beans (dose) to get 60g of espresso out (yield), during 24-28 seconds.

g dose

g yield

View the how to brew espresso (single origin) guide.

1:16.7
beans:water
ratio

To brew in infusion/fed brewers (V60, Chemex) use a ratio of 1:16.7 ratio of beans:water.

g beans

g water

View full recipes and videos in our brewguides

1:14.3
beans:water
ratio

To brew in immersion brewers (plunger, AeroPress, Kalita, batch brewer) we recommend using a 1:14.3 ratio of beans:water

g beans

g water

View full recipes and videos in our brewguides

1:12
beans:water
ratio

To brew as cold brew we recommend using a 1:12 ratio of beans:water

g beans

g water

View full recipes and videos in our brewguides

Producer: Marco Fidel Rodriguez
Country: Colombia
Region: Filo De Chillurco, Huila
Varietals: Caturra
Process: Washed
Body: Medium
Acidity: Medium
Tasting notes: Peach, raspberry, white grape
Roast style: Omni

Varietals

Caturra varietal

Caturra is a natural mutation of Bourbon that was originally discovered in Brazil in 1937, considered to be the first naturally occurring mutation ever discovered.

The location

Coffee from Colombia

Colombia is one of the largest coffee producers in the world and benefits greatly from having one of the most unique and complex set of micro-climates of all coffee producing nations.

The Huila region of Colombia

This region boasts the perfect combination of high quality soil and geography and is quickly becoming one of the largest coffee producing regions in Colombia. One of the best regarded regions for high quality, fruit driven coffee.

Farm processes

Washed process

Machines are used to remove the flesh from the coffee cherry before being fermented in water, washed again, and finally sun dried. This process tends to result in more distinct, cleaner flavours.