La Palma y El Tucan

Finca La Palma y El Tucán is located in Colombia's Cundinamarca region, on the eastern range of the Colombian Andes. Though it is only about an hour and a half from Bogota, it features a range of micro-climates that allow for great biodiversity and unique ecosystems, with ideal conditions for specialty coffee growing.

In 2013 our friends Carlos, Elisa and Felipe, founders of La Palma y El Tucán, developed a plan to work with their neighbors to create a sustainable relationship model. They named the program “Neighbors & Crops” and have identified more than 200 coffee producers within a 10-kilometer radius to take part. They select and train specific pickers in high-quality coffee harvesting methods. And then work with the neighbors to select, pick, and buy the cherry. These families are paid 50% more than the national average for their coffee cherry, as well as given additional coffee trees grown at the La Palma y El Tucán nursery.

A great example of the success of the Neighbors & Crops program is the washed “bio-innovation” process Castillo variety from Gladis Cruz. La Palma y El Tucán’s encouragement of new processing methods inspired Cruz to capture and reproduce microorganisms found in their farm’s beautiful forests, to create their own fermentation substrate and then store the beans in the substrate for 100 hours. Afterwards, the farm uses the spent substrate as compost to create a sustainable closed cycle.