Finca La Piragua

We have been buying coffee from Alexander Vargas Osorio for over a decade now, and we are delighted to have his coffee on our counter again this year. La Piragua was bought by Alexander and his wife Lidia in 2009 as a neglected plot with promise and they have turned it into something very special. Alexander left school at an early age with very little education, in his own words ‘when I was eleven, I had no choice but to work, I come from a very humble family and started from zero’. Alexander was fortunate to meet Octavio Rueda from El Mirador who offered him a job and from whom he learnt more about coffee growing. We first met Alexander during a coffee competition we were running in Pitalito, Huila in the 2010s. We thought his coffee was outstanding and were impressed with his tenacity and commitment to quality. With Alexander and Lidia’s work, the farm has gone from strength to strength and most years we buy from his main and mid-season crops. The coffee is one of the most consistent we know with its berry fruit and jammy sweetness, and this year is no exception.