LA

RIVERA FARM

Name: La Rivera.
Area: 25 Hectares.
Municipality: Santa Rosa de Cabal.
Department: Risaralda.
Farmers: Julio César Madrid and Andrés Quiceno
Altitude: 1600-1750 MASL
Annual Rain Fall: 1900 mm
Varieties: Caturra, Castillo, Catiope, Gesha, Red and Yellow Borbón, Pink Bourbon, Laurina,
Moka, Sudán Rumé, Maragogype.
Fermentation/Drying Processes: Full Washed, Honey, Natural, Cold Press and
Experimental.

The owners of La Rivera farm are two friends and third generation coffee growers, who one
day decided to create a farm focused on harvesting and producing high quality coffee from
exotic varieties. Their intention was to incentivize the consumption of top-quality coffee in
Colombia, while becoming a reference in the local coffee scene.

In this pursuit of quality, Julio have employed a full time Q Grader, to help them guarantee
consistency over time, by controlling each variable of the coffee process and asses the end
results in the cup. Additionally, in order to better understand the characteristics of their
coffee and the client needs, Julio and Andrés have trained themselves as baristas.

Today, La Rivera farm is a successful enterprise and a force of positive impact in the region,
employing 30 people full time and other 50 part time (especially vulnerable elderly people
and single mothers).

Caturra Culturing Process

The culturing process is a method used by fermentation professionals across different
industries, where a base culture of microorganisms helps transform flavors and aromas of a
specific product (one example being the yogurt). In la Rivera farm this process has been
implemented in the fermentation of the “culturing coffee”, according to the following steps:

• We begin with the preparation of the starter culture based on yeast, lactobacillus,
sucrose, pineapple fructose and tangerine, among other fruits. This raw material is
pure and selected fruit without artificial flavors.
• This culture is left to ferment on closed tanks for 8 days controlling temperature and
PH until reaching ideal conditions.
• Parallelly, the cherries are picked at the optimum maturity level, with zero tolerance for
unripe cherries. Afterwards, these are submerged in a tank with water at 15ºC - 20ºC
to wash unwanted bacteria and remove low density beans (floaters).
• The selected cherries are pulped and then fermented for 48 hours inside an open tank
to reach the desired temperature, PH and Brix measurement.
• Once both the starting culture and the coffee have reached their ideal conditions, they
are mixed in closed tanks to begin a 180 hours anaerobic fermentation.
• Finally, the coffee is taken out of the tanks, washed and put in a greenhouse style solar
drying structure for a slow drying process of approximately 15-20 days, until the
moisture level reaches 11.5%.