Finca La Piragua

We have known Alexander Vargas Osorio and his family for over ten years now. When Alexander bought La Piragua in 2009 it was in a very basic state - there was coffee growing, a road, water and electrical supply. Alexander and his wife Lidia decided they were up for the challenge and every year they move forward with improvements. The first step was to build a house for themselves and an area to process their coffee. They built a micro-beneficio, fermentation tanks and a drying area, and when their children were born, they banded together with local families to build a small school. Alexander has kept planting Caturra and now has six hectares. He also grows beans, banana and dragon fruit. The dragon fruit is a particularly important crop; it is harvested just before coffee and is sold immediately, helping with cash flow for the main coffee crop. Over the last few years Alexander has continued to innovate and adapt his processing to his conditions. He now uses fermentation barrels which are easier to keep clean than square tanks and are smaller so he can handle smaller amounts of coffee. Often a day’s picking, especially during the reduced Mitaca crop, can be less than 10kgs of coffee. This quantity is too small for a large tank, but it is great quality, and the smaller tanks are a more appropriate size to deal with it. Alexander ferments his coffee for up to 48 hours, and then rinses the coffee before adding it to a drying stack. As the coffee drains and dries off it is raised onto a higher level each week before being moved to the drying tunnels to complete the process. Recently Alexander has upgraded his pre-selection area by adding a concrete floor and a roof above the selection table. Improvements to the farm were paused for awhile as a storm came through last year which took with it some roof tiles and damaged the drying tunnels. These were all fixed in time for the last crop to come through.