Juan Saldarriaga owns two farms, La Claudina and El Encanto where his father who he inherited the business from still lives. We discovered that of the two farms we particularly loved La Claudina and this will be the fifth year we have ran it for our Unit Fourteen espresso.

La Claudina is a short drive from the city of Bolivar in Antioquia. The farm house is at the bottom of the valley and the farm’s steep slopes are planted with Caturra, Castillo, Tabi, Variedad Colombia and even Geisha. During the height of the season Juan will employ 45 pickers and out of season the farm employees 3 permanent staff. What drew us to working with Juan is his hands on approach, he lives by the farm, works the land, processes and experiments with the coffee. Juan’s two farms are quite large so we can grow with him and his coffees in the future as part of a more direct model.

In the years we have been working with Juan we have seen many developments with the farms but also with his business Tierra De Café. He has developed his own mill in partnership with Nordic Approach and has been helping other producers in the local area access a wider market. You can find out more about our relationship with Juan in the ‘Learn’ section of our website.