Our Farmers.
Elias Roa.
For us at Amor Perfecto, Don Elias is a great example of what work, dedication and passion can accomplish in Colombia. 17 years ago, Don Elias returned to the farm after a life altering event in the street of Bogota.
Today, his farm is a reference for quality all over the world. Together with his wife Bellanith and their sons and daughters, they have been spent more than 8 years working side-by-side with baristas like the World Barista Champion Tim Wendelboe and our own Diego Campos (3 times National Champion of Colombia and now Husband to Elias's eldest daughter, Derlin!) to create special coffees for the Nordic countries. Their farm is located in Huila between the two mountain ranges that bisect Colombia from South to North along the Magdalena Valley. Today, Huila is the #1 producer of coffees in Colombia. The farm is located in the La Plata Municipality at an altitude of 1,650 masl.
Amor Perfecto developed a strong relationship with Don Elias and his family over the years and this has allowed us to roast his coffee with the joint collaboration of him and his family, resulting is a great example of an elegant, yet flavorful cup of one of Colombia’s best coffees.
Santos Vizcaya.
This is a special farmer and coffee, a rare winner of 3 gold medals (Most Smooth, Best Balance and Most Exotic) in the 2020 Land of Diversity competition (previously Cup of Excellence). Typica-Caturra-Bourbon beans fermented 28 hours without water and sun dried for 18 days. The flavors combine honey, chocolate, and hazelnut notes with a creamy yet enduring sweet hazelnut flavor with notes of lemon-lime. Wow !
The La Habana Farm is at an altitude of 2150 masl in the San Antonio Municipality of Tolima. Santos is a 3rd generation coffee farmer, named after his grandfather. He lives in the farm with his wife and son (4th generation farmer) who help him produce this amazing coffee. Santos tells us with much pride that being a coffee farmer has “brought happiness and peace to his life” and “quality in coffee improves the quality of life”. We couldn’t agree more!
Samuel Bermudez.
Samuel Bermudez’s story is an incomparable example of a dedicated and modern coffee grower. As a manager of agriculture companies and a coffee farmer, he has developed harvesting and post-harvesting processes based on microorganisms native to the farm and incorporated different timings and procedures of fermentation that allow the development of unique profiles in his coffees. Working alongside his brothers and other members of the family, they have consolidated 5 farms, with El Paraiso being the principal one amongst them. Located in the Piendamo Municipality of the State of Cauca and bordering Nariño State, Cauca is the fourth largest coffee producer of Colombia with 93,627 hectares of coffee plants amongst 114,493 coffee farms, which averages less than one hectare per farm.
Samuel’s coffee is a very special presentation of a Castillo variety coffee that offers an surprising profile with a richness of red berries and natural sugar cane that allows it to outshine even the rarest and most expensive varieties. Once you taste this coffee, you will understand what a truly fresh coffee can taste like and change the way you think about coffee. Unique flavors and aromas. We have carried out tastings of this coffee around the world and people are pleading with us to send them more. This coffee certainly has a wow factor.
Familia Campos Roa
The perfect example of a new generation coffee-growing family where the knowledge of a coffee shop is united with the second generation of a coffee grower to develop new products with new technologies and satisfy the most demanding consumers.
The Campos Roa family has been part of Amor Perfecto since 2008 when Diego Campos, our current and three-time national barista champion came to Bogota from his native Espinal to learn how to roast coffee. As the most resent champion, he will be representing Colombia in the world barista championship in Italy. His wife Delin Roa, daughter of acclaimed coffee grower Elias Roa (Finca Tamana), came to Amor Perfecto from Huila to learn about the world of barismo and that is how she met Diego. While they learned their trade, they fell in love, married and moved to Merlbourne for 2 years, to expand their knowledge base. Derlin is a former national AeroPress champion and competed in the London world championship in 2019. At this time and the birth of their daughter Sofia, they decided to return to what they loved, the mountains of Huila and taking care of their own coffee farm and working with Elias Roa in producing some of the best coffees in the world.
In this special edition of coffee, you will find the work of two expert baristas that decided to return to the land and cultivate high quality coffee. Using the best new processes and varieties in their farm - El Diamante, located in the municipality of La Plata, Huila, this special edition coffee, the first of this collaboration, carries notes of Mango, Strawberry, Peach and White Chocolate. Smooth, sweet and lasting pleasant notes that linger while you smile.
Umbertino Cuatindoy.
Umbertino Cuatindoy’s Chacaguaico Farm, with an altitude of 1800+ masl, is a member of the El Aguacate farm complex in Sandona, Nariño. The Farm is very close to the Galeras Volcano which give these coffees their unique flavors. Amor Perfecto, Innovakit and the El Aguacate Farm complex have a strong history together as they were early adopters of our efforts to incorporate the Amor Perfecto decolonized model where the farms utilize the most modern farming and post-harvest process to produce great coffees and reap the economic upside of their efforts. Our friend Don Arnulfo Botina, who passed away this year, at the ripe age of 79, was the pioneer of this movement and won the Colombia Cup of Excellence in 2005. Don Umbertino today carries the flag with outstanding results. Like all the El Aguacate coffees, the Chacaguaico Farm produces coffees with very distinct notes. A well-rounded coffee with strong vanilla-chocolate flavors, paired with mild citrus notes and then a prolonged white chocolate finish. To say this coffee puts a smile on your face is an understatement.
Our Founder.
Luis Fernando.
In 1997 Luis Fernando Velez opened his first coffee shop convinced that if Colombia produces the best coffee beans in the world, they had every right to serve and enjoy a wonderful coffee. At the time, it was actually illegal to roast coffee beans grown in the country !! So, Luis Fernando set out to find and roast the best beans in Colombia, despite the law. It wasn’t until 6 years later, in 2003, that he was able to push through a new law that made roasting green beans in Colombia legal. Roasting at Source was born (legally at least)
Luis Fernando studied Administration and wrote his thesis on international trade and export products. He could not understand why Colombia exported its most precious natural product, green coffee beans, without any value added. He knew that France would NEVER export their grapes so that they could be turned into wine in another country. For Luis Fernando it became a 23-year obsession of making the best coffee in the world, sourcing the beans in his country and then roasting then to highest standards and using the latest technologies.
This is how he started scouring the world for the best roasting technologies and visiting the roasters in Scandinavia, the rest of Europe, Asia and the USA. He even became the first Colombian Barista Champion to participate in a World Barista Championship.
After trying other roasters, Luis Fernando saw the Smart Loring Roasters’ new technology as the best way to deliver a consistently balanced roast which matched the elegant nuances of Colombian coffee beans. In 2013 he bought first 35kg capacity Loring roaster. One of the first in the world. Today, Luis Fernando roasts all our extraordinary coffees in 2 Loring Roasters with a total capacity of 2.8m lbs a year.
In 2008 he proposed that the World Barista Competition be held in Colombia and in 2011, the WBC was held in Bogota. Making it the 1st and only championship to be held in a coffee growing country.
It’s been quite a journey from a “bootleg” roaster to carefully and painstakingly building the best coffee farm-to-cup quality supply chain in the world today. Built with our extraordinary quality control partner, Innovakit and taking care of the most important component in producing great coffee, the farmers and the coffee professionals in Colombia.
ALL PRICES ARE USD.
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