San Agustin is home to a pre-Colombian civilisation and sits in the mountains where the Magdalena River is born. It’s also home to the Imbachi family, whose influence on Caravela (our sourcing partner for this coffee) and on the wider community of producers is well worth noting. Their ongoing commitment to specialty coffee and their drive for quality set them apart, and are worthy of real praise.
Carlos Imbachi began as a treasure hunter, searching for artefacts left by the indigenous people of San Agustin and selling them to collectors. With that money he built a house in the vereda La Argentina and started growing coffee and other farm products. At first, coffee wasn’t profitable: he picked, depulped, washed and sold it wet, and the income only covered his workers, with nothing left for him. He later began drying his coffee on the farm, but didn’t focus heavily on quality until he met Caravela years ago. Their team visited his farm and helped him see that better harvest and post-harvest practices could make coffee profitable. After years of hard work and experimentation, he became an exceptional specialty producer, and over time, something of a godfather of specialty coffee in San Agustin and across Caravela’s producer partner network. His coffee was awarded Coffee of the Year by the SCAA in 2009.
As Carlos has aged, he has taken a step back from overseeing the farm. He lives there with two of his sons, and his daughter Sonia runs her own coffee farm nearby with her husband. His eldest son, Didier, chose the path of cupping and is now Quality Assurance Coordinator at Caravela.
For many years, the coffee from this farm was sold under Carlos’ name alone. As his sons became more involved in the work and production grew, the family made a decision that benefited everyone. Rather than dividing the land, or labelling each parchment lot by which son produced it, they chose to release all their coffees as Imbachi Familia. This streamlined their processes. It also made financial sense: when lots were labelled and categorised under different family members’ names, the family paid unnecessary and excessive Colombian taxes that ate into their profits.
Today the farm is a truly collaborative effort across the whole family, and they continue to produce what is arguably the best coffee from San Agustin in Caravela’s producer portfolio. This AAA lot was produced by the entire family, with Yan and Sonia Imbachi (Carlos’ son and daughter) closely involved in its production.
