Leoncio Maceto, a coffee grower from Ortega, Tolima, is 41 years old and owns the Las Brisas farm located in the Alto Guayabos vereda. The farm spans 6 hectares, with 3.6 hectares dedicated to coffee cultivation at an altitude of 1,860 meters. He cultivates several varieties including Colombia with 5,200 trees (3 years old), Castillo Tambo with 2,000 trees (4 years old), Pink Bourbon 1 with 1,200 trees (5 years old), and Catimore with 4,500 trees (7 years old).

The coffee process is fully washed, with cherries meticulously sorted to ensure only perfectly ripe ones are used. Leoncio is very selective about his pickers, compensating them well to ensure only fully ripe cherries are harvested. The picking cycle occurs every 8 days. For the Pink Bourbon, he employs a double fermentation process: an initial 24-hour aerobic fermentation in the cherry takes place in the hopper, followed by pulping and another 24-hour fermentation in the receiving tank. The coffee is then washed twice. The drying process involves using a parabolic solar dryer, where an ideal 3cm layer of coffee is maintained to ensure even and slow drying.

Siruma our specialty export partners in Colombia and have invested in this community and their agronomist, Pilar has been delivering workshops to this group on coffee processing and also how to organise the structure of the Association as this was highlighted as a need for them from taking baseline data. With the help of Siruma to get them organised as an Association they have now been able to deliver direct to Siruma. Previously they had to go through a middle man (local buyer).