El Indio

A complex coffee with vivid fruit notes of passionfruit, red grape and orange, underpinned by syrupy brown sugar and dark chocolate in the finish.

The Municipality of Planadas sits in the southernmost reaches of the Department of Tolima, tucked into the foothills of the Cordillera Central – the central spine of the Andes that runs through the heart of Colombia. The word Tolima comes from the local indigenous language and translates roughly as "river of snow or cloud," which gives you a sense of just how dramatically the landscape shapes what grows here. Tolima is Colombia's third largest coffee-producing region, and its coffees are known for a complexity that sets them apart from the country's more famous producing departments.

Planadas itself is a relatively young town, established in 1966 by settlers from Antioquia and Huila – two regions with coffee farming in their DNA. It didn't take long for the same traditions to take root. Today the area produces some of the most exciting specialty coffee in Colombia, with farms sitting between 1,500 and 2,150 metres above sea level. At those altitudes, warm days and cool nights slow the development of the cherry, allowing sugars to build gradually and complexity to follow.

The coffee in your bag comes from 175 farming families working within the El Indio programme, all members of ASOPEP – the Asociación de Productores Ecológicos de Planadas. Founded in 2013 and led by general manager Camilo Enciso Suarez, ASOPEP has built a reputation as one of Tolima's most progressive cooperatives. Almost all of its members are certified organic, and the association has complete control over the full chain – from processing and quality control right through to transport and commercialisation – which is unusual and genuinely valuable for consistency.

What really sets ASOPEP apart, though, is its focus on education. The co-operative runs weekend cupping workshops at its own lab, open to young people in Planadas who want to learn how to evaluate coffee. It's a deliberate and meaningful investment in the future of the community – giving the next generation real skills and a reason to stay in the region. Around 30% of ASOPEP's members are aged between 20 and 30, which says a lot about how well it's working.

The farms across the El Indio programme grow a mix of varieties – most commonly Caturra, Castillo, and the FNC-developed Colombia cultivar, with Typica making up a smaller portion of the crop. Because cherries are delivered to the communal drying station from 175 different farms and processed together, the exact varietal split in any given lot can vary from harvest to harvest. What we can say is that Caturra tends to dominate, and it's a variety well-suited to these altitudes – producing a clean, bright cup that's typical of the best Colombian smallholder coffee.

Natural processing is still relatively rare in Tolima, where the washed method has historically dominated. ASOPEP built a dedicated communal drying station specifically to change that, giving producers access to the infrastructure they'd need to process naturals properly. Ripe cherries are selectively hand-picked, then transported to the station where they're hand-sorted to remove any defects before being laid out on raised beds to dry. The process is carefully monitored by the quality team until the coffee reaches 11% moisture content – the point at which it's stable and ready.