The Name: Las Veraneras

In Colombian Spanish, las veraneras are the bougainvillea flowers — the brilliant magenta and crimson blooms that carpet the hillsides of the Andean coffee region during the dry season (el verano). The flowers announce the dry season's arrival; and in coffee farming, the dry season marks the main harvest, when cherries ripened slowly through months of growth finally reach their peak sweetness and are ready to pick. Naming a lot Las Veraneras places it explicitly in that seasonal moment — a specific time of year when conditions are optimal and the best coffee is produced.

Rodrigo Sánchez and Finca Monteblanco

Rodrigo Sánchez Valencia runs Finca Monteblanco in Huila, and has become one of the most internationally recognised Colombian producers of his generation. Finca Monteblanco first entered global specialty consciousness through its Purple Caturra variety — an extraordinarily rare naturally-occurring mutation of Caturra producing purple-ripening cherries (see Blog #8 for the full Monteblanco story). The farm has since expanded its processing experiments into co-fermentation with fruit infusions, producing the Strawberry (Blog #9) and Watermelon (Blog #10) co-fermented lots that have attracted buyers from across Europe, the US, and Asia.

Las Veraneras is the farm's seasonal expression lot — capturing Monteblanco's terroir and Rodrigo's precision processing at the optimal moment of the harvest year. Roasters who carry Monteblanco lots include Onyx Coffee Lab, Sweven Coffee, and multiple EU specialty buyers.

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