La Mina

La Mina is a tiny 2 hectare plot on a steep mountainside outside of Buesaco, where Blanca Edilma Lopez grows coffee in Colombia’s mountainous Nariño region. We have come to appreciate coffees from Nariño over many years, for their dense sweetness and intense, concentrated flavours in the cup, with a high degree of clarity. Incredibly high altitudes, often over 2000 masl, and excellent sun exposure mean sugar-rich, slow-matured coffee cherries, with ample fuel for fermentation and roasting to create complexity and intensity.

Blanca is a member of a well-known coffee growing family in the region. Her father Franco Héctor Lopez reached the national finals of the Cup of Excellence several times, and is one of the leaders that helped put Buesaco on the speciality coffee map. We have previously purchased coffee from Blanca’s sister Alba at her farm El Mirador, and from her nephew, Alba’s son Jeison, at El Estoraque. La Mina was previously Franco’s farm, which Blanca took over after his passing in 2025. Together with the rest of her family, Blanca is continuing her father’s legacy in coffee.

This lot is of the Caturra varietal, processed using a honey method. The cherries are first placed in sealed containers for 24 hours, before de-pulping and a second fermentation of 36 hours, this time in open tanks. The coffee is then dried directly on covered raised beds for around 18 days.

This careful fermentation translates the potential of these intensely sweet Nariño cherries into a bright and complex profile, with notes of tropical mango, while holding on to the crisp red berry acidity we’ve tasted from so many high altitude Nariño coffees.