Colombia Tres Dragones Esperanza

Granja La Esperanza is a group of 6 farms in El Valle del Cauca and Cundinamarca owned by Rigoberto and Luis Eduardo Herrera, two brothers from a traditional coffee family. Their grandfather owned a very large Hacienda in the region of Trujillo that was slowly sold off over the decades.

The Herreras left Colombia in the 1970s to study engineering abroad but returned in 1998 with a dream to reconstruct their grandfather’s Hacienda and get back into coffee farming. Cafe Granja La Esperanza has taken great strides under the brothers' leadership and forward-thinking vision. In the last
Over the past decade, the farm has transitioned from traditional 'C' market coffees to the more delicate and exquisite varieties coveted by the specialty coffee industry.
The farm resembles a garden filled with diverse coffee varietals and is one of the most progressive and experimental farms in the world. What we are witnessing here is an approach more akin to the rigours of fine wine-making, where varieties are chosen more for their flavour attributes than their disease resistance. Many innovations have led to this excellence in the cup. A hand-picked group of pickers, for example, are trained to pick only the
ripest cherries and are paid by the day, rather than by the weight, to discourage filling up baskets with unripe fruit. Rigoberta describes the three pillars upon which their control of coffee quality is built as 'The Genetic Material of the Variety, the Terroir and the Human Talent. Of the 3, the people who work at Granja La Esperanza are the most important resource. This enlightened approach doesn't stop there - every delivery to the mill is tested with a brix
meter, to measure sugar levels in the fruit - how wine industry is that! The processing and drying can then be adjusted accordingly. There are actually 95 different quality hurdles for the beans to navigate from nursery to port. This tremendous investment of human resources, time, energy and money can only come about through total dedication.