Colombia | Rigoberto Herrera, Café Granja La Esperanza

 Valle del Cauca + Cundinamarca

Nearly a century old, and spread across five farms in Valle del Cauca and Cundinamarca, Colombia, Café Granja La Esperanza has taken great strides under the brothers’ leadership and forward-thinking vision. In the last decade, the farm has diverged from the traditional “C” market coffees to the more delicate and exquisite varieties coveted by the specialty coffee industry, while achieving Rainforest Alliance certification.

Rigoberto sent his head agronomist to a farm they rented in Boquete, Panama, where he learned about farming the Gesha variety. He then brought his knowledge back to to the farm, and they began cultivating what would be Colombia’s first lot of Gesha coffee.

In 2012, Café Granja La Esperanza achieved a “Triple Crown,” landing in 2nd, 3rd, and 7th place in the SCAA’s Coffees of the Year competition. More recently, our roasts of their coffees have routinely received high scores from Coffee Review.

We're consistently impressed by Rigoberto's single-minded dedication to improving coffee quality. Recently, CGLE developed the Mandela cultivar, which resulted from multi-phased cross-breeding with the goal of improving flavor potential and cup quality along with resilience and productivity.

High-quality Colombian Caturra was crossed with Timor for Coffee Leaf Rust resistance, and then crossed again with Ethiopian landraces including Sudan Rume. The best-performing offspring were then selected and the varietal stabilized, with the resulting trees exhibiting both bronze and green tips.

We look forward to working with Rigoberto and Luis Herrera for many years to come.

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