Héctor López Chiroso • Washed // Urrao, Colombia

Don Héctor López worked for 30 years in Medellín’s textile industry, retiring when his company closed during the pandemic. Two of his daughters had already spent years working in coffee in the mountains of Urrao, where Héctor decided to follow, learning from the training and technical knowledge his daughters had gained within the industry.  Héctor purchased a small farm there and alongside his wife and children, committed to learning the craft properly.

Don Héctor’s farm, El Susurro, is located in Pabón, is relatively small at around 5 hectares.  Since relocating, Héctor’s become a mentor in the community, helping neighbors with practical needs (printing schoolwork, sharing reliable internet access), and helping local farmers with the technical knowledge needed to produce high quality specialty coffees.

Urrao is known for quality coffee — particularly as of late, chiroso.  An often misunderstood and elusive variety, as the name can be traced to three varying genetic lineages.  As such, pinning down its specific origin can be difficult, but what is consistently true is that Urrao has helped define what Chiroso tastes like in the modern specialty market, and producers there have built processing systems around protecting that variety’s character.

Don Héctor processed this lot in small daily batches, float sorting before layering each week’s production in open tanks to create an integrated but nuanced character of varying levels of fermentation.

*Orders Roast Tuesday, ship Wednesday.  Order cutoff from same-week fulfillment is Monday at 11:59pm.