Mauricio Montanchez ~ Pink Bourbon | Huila, Colombia

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This Pink Bourbon from Mauricio Montanchez is facilitated by Brendan Adams from Semilla Coffee. I’ve known about Brendan’s work in sourcing from before he started his boutique importing company and have a lot of respect for what he’s built over the last few years. His heart’s in the right spot, sourcing with intention (and follow through) to be there fiscally for the producers he buys from, acting as a facilitator. I can’t emphasize to you enough how special and sadly rare it is to see someone like Brendan working in this way in a world that is increasingly competitive at the expense of stable producer-roaster relationships. It’s very cool, folks.

The Montanchez family are no strangers to thinking in generations. Brendan from Semilla (who imported this coffee) shares with us that, “Once a Montanchez child finished their primary studies, they became more involved in the farm under the watchful eye of their father. Together, they salvaged old parcels of coffee that were overgrown and neglected, identified the best areas for planting coffee, and set aside parcels for the growing of subsistence crops like tomato, plantains, and corn. Taking advice from their neighbours, they began planting higher quality varieties like Caturra and Pink Bourbon as well as disease resistant varieties like Castillo. Soon, (older siblings) Antonio and Manuel would move off the farm to begin their own lives, leaving (the younger, now adult siblings) Yuri, Robert, and Mauricio to tend to the farm.”

From a family who decided to leave the tumult (to put it mildly) of coca production in the mountains of Nariño back in the 1990s to today, fully vested in higher end coffee production. Mauricio is continuing this living legacy from his late father, with his own small section of the farm that overlooks the Magdalena river and San Agustin (offered by Mauricio’s older brother Robert) is made up of 6,000 Pink Bourbon trees planted just six years ago.