Colombia Yerbabuena Honey

What We Love

Yerbabuena Honey is a stunning example of Nariño’s high-altitude coffees, offering a dynamic balance of bright kumquat acidity, tart sour cherry, and a lingering dark honey sweetness. The honey process amplifies its silky texture, making each sip vibrant with acidity and adding layers of complex citrus and berry tones. Yerbabuena is a coffee that surprises with its depth while staying refreshingly crisp: a perfect reminder of why we continue featuring coffees from Nariño.

About the Producer

Nestled at Colombia’s southern tip along the Ecuadorian border, Nariño is a place of extremes. Soaring elevations, rugged terrain, and a climate that tests both coffee trees and the farmers who tend them. These high-altitude farms produce some of the world's most vivid and complex coffees. Yet for decades, instability and violence forced many families to abandon their land, putting the region’s coffee potential on hold. Only in recent years, as peace has slowly returned, have growers begun rebuilding their farms and reclaiming their place in Colombia’s coffee landscape.  

Sourcing coffee from Nariño remains a challenge. Farms are often no larger than a few acres, and the mountainous terrain makes transportation slow, costly, and unpredictable. But despite these obstacles, producers like Diego Jojoa, with the support of exporters like Toldopamba, are crafting exceptional coffees that embody the region’s resilience and renewal.  

Founded by Angela Patiño Findlay and Carlos Burbano, Toldopamba is both a family farm and an exporter committed to supporting Nariño’s smallholder farmers. For Carlos, this mission is personal—his grandfather, Noe Burbano, was forced to abandon Toldopamba in the 1990s due to violence. Years later, Carlos returned with a vision: revive his family’s farm and create pathways for other producers to succeed. Today, Toldopamba provides technical support, logistical assistance, and market access to growers who share their commitment to sustainability and quality.  

This year, Carlos and Angela worked with Diego Jojoa to produce one of the cleanest, most expressive honey-processed coffees we’ve ever encountered. Diego and his family farm just two hectares of land in Santa Fe, Buesaco, a region increasingly recognized as a hotbed for phenomenal coffees. Though he’s only been producing coffee for a few years, Diego’s dedication to quality is evident in every step of his meticulous process. His honey-processed caturra is a testament to his craftsmanship and Nariño’s extraordinary growing conditions.  

Diego named this lot “Yerbabuena," meaning “good herb” in Spanish—a name tied to freshness, vitality, and renewal. It’s also a reference to the aromatic mint, a staple in Latin American kitchens and traditions. Just like its namesake, this coffee carries a sense of brightness and vibrancy—an embodiment of the land, the process, and the people behind it.  

About the Coffee

Grown high in the Colombian Cordillera Occidental, Nariño’s coffee thrives in extreme elevations, where rich volcanic soil, intense equatorial sun, and cool mountain nights create the perfect environment for slow cherry maturation. This natural process deepens sweetness, enhances acidity, and develops a layered complexity that makes Nariño coffees some of the most distinctive in Colombia. Each season, these highland coffees surprise us with their vivid clarity and expressive character.  

While most coffees from Nariño undergo the traditional washed process—yielding crisp notes of apple and citrus—this honey-processed caturra offers something entirely different and truly special. We selected this lot because it highlights the diversity of Nariño’s flavors, showcasing a lusher, more fruit-forward profile.  

After careful handpicking and sorting, the cherries were fermented for 48 hours, allowing the fruit’s natural sugars to deepen the cup’s complexity. After depulping, the coffee was dried with its sugary mucilage intact on raised beds for 13 days, enhancing its viscous body and tropical sweetness. The result is a coffee that balances tart and sweet fruit tones with a silky mouthfeel and a lingering, sugary finish: a stunning example of Nariño’s depth and versatility.