Colombia Amigos del Huila Espresso, Washed Field Blend

About the Coffee

The producers behind this lot are smallholder farmers from four municipalities in Huila, Colombia: Bruselas, Tarqui, Nataga, and San Agustin. All of them are long-term partners of importer Shared Source, which has been working with this group for 10 years. Their farms sit at 1,760 to 1,850 meters above sea level, and the lot is made up of two varieties: Caturra, a compact Bourbon mutation first selected in Brazil in the 1930s, and Variedad Colombia, a rust-resistant cross developed by Colombian research institute Cenicafé. Subtext purchased 1,540 kg of the total 6,090 kg lot.

Shared Source built this community lot as a way to buy a broader range of coffees from producers they already work with regularly, at prices that reflect that relationship. The weighted average farmgate price paid was 3,155,327 COP per carga (125 kg of parchment), and Subtext paid $6.19 USD per pound. Beyond pricing, Shared Source provides pre-harvest financing so farmers can pay coffee pickers on time, makes equipment donations, and supports ongoing soil health work aimed at reducing dependence on synthetic inputs.

The washed process used here starts with a 12 to 24 hour fermentation while the coffee is still inside the cherry. After de-pulping, the coffee undergoes a dry fermentation before being laid out to dry in marquesinas (raised drying beds with roof covers) for two to three weeks. Huila is Colombia's largest coffee-producing department, with coffee grown in 35 of its 37 municipalities, and the region's range of altitudes and microclimates makes it one of the more diverse sources in the country.

About Subtext

Subtext is a Toronto-based roastery operating out of an industrial space at 130 Cawthra Ave in the city's west end. Their sourcing approach is built around transparency: every bag names the producer, and they publish farmgate and FOB pricing on each product page so buyers can see exactly what was paid at each step of the supply chain. They don't blend or rename coffees, and they don't roast dark, arguing that all of these practices tend to obscure where a coffee comes from and who grew it.

On the roasting side, Subtext uses colorimeters and refractometers to measure roast development and solubility, and they taste their profiles blind against what they consider comparable benchmark coffees. For this particular lot, they scored it at 85 on their internal cupping scale and recommend resting it for three weeks after roast before pulling it as espresso.