Passenger Coffee
Lancaster, PA, USA
Cesar Gómez Saby’s farm, La Lagunita, is located in Bajo Horizonte, a tiny hamlet in the Suaza region of southern Huila, Colombia. This is the first year that a coffee from Cesar’s farm placed in the top 10 of the Copa Suaceña: a regional cupping competition organized to highlight the finest coffees produced by individual members of two producer groups that Passenger has been buying from for the past three years. In December 2019 two members of Passenger’s green buying team travelled to southern Huila, Colombia to participate as judges in the inaugural Copa Suaceña. The “Suaza Cup” is a regional cupping competition, organized by our friends and partners at Osito Coffee, that was created to identify and recognize the highest quality coffees produced by a community of farmers that Passenger has been buying from for the past three years. To qualify for inclusion, coffees submitted to the competition had to meet strict physical analysis criteria (between 10-10.8% moisture content; between .48-.58 water activity; yield factor of 90 or less), and had to be produced by members of one of two producer groups: La Cooperativa Divino Niño del Horizonte and ASOCAFOR. Since 2018, this community of coffee producers has been one of Passenger’s foundational partners and their coffees are featured year round on our menu under the name Divino Niño. While it was sadly impossible to make our annual sourcing trip to Colombia in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Passenger was honored to be invited to serve as one of the cupping locations for the second Copa Suaceña competition which adopted a decentralized format this year. In January 2021, a panel of five judges located in Colombia, Connecticut, and Lancaster completed a meticulous sensory evaluation of the 29 competition lots, using video conferencing and shared spreadsheets to debrief scores and notes over three consecutive days of tasting. On the final day, the top 10 lots were re-cupped and overall scores were tabulated to establish the final ranking for the 2020 Copa Suaceña.
Green Grape
Guava
Meat-like
Type
Single Origin
Origin
Huila, Colombia
Roast
Medium
Species
Arabica
Varieties
Colombia, Castillo, Caturra
Process
Wet Hulled
Altitude
1500m
Producer
Cesar Gomez Saby
Farm
La Lagunita