What I'm drinking: Finca Tamana, Colombia, roasted by Workshop Coffee

This is the third year in a row that I’ve had the pleasure of drinking the Finca Tamana, an award-winning coffee from the Huila region of Colombia. I once tried a batch roasted by Ben Presland, which was beautiful, but otherwise this is the third year in a row that I’ve had this coffee courtesy of Workshop. A box containing the Tamana actually arrived during my test shift at Pink Lane Coffee almost two years ago, and so it may well have been the first coffee I ever brewed. What a thought.

In recent years, the Finca Tamana has become famous. The farm, which is owned by Elias Roa and can be found in El Pital, Huila, Colombia, is known for its meticulous processing methods and firm focus on quality. Roa has been working closely with Tim Wendelboe for the past few years, and together they have produced crop after crop of truly excellent coffee. (Despite being a big Tim Wendelboe fan, I have yet to try his roast of the Tamana. For shame.)

Year after year, Roa and Wendelboe’s hard work results in a balanced, beautiful and clean cup of coffee. On the nose, there’s heaps of honeycomb and something slightly nutty, while in the cup there’s crisp red apple up front followed by a smooth, chocolatey finish. The Tamana is not as off-the-wall fruity as the two coffees I’ve featured previously – Colombians are, by and large, less fruity and more quintessentially ‘coffee-like’ than Kenyans – but it is still very sweet, and about as close to perfect as a coffee can get.

The Finca Tamana is currently available online in the Workshop Coffee dispensary, and it can also be purchased at any of their four London locations.

A book about the coffee has also been produced (in collaboration with Tim Wendelboe) and it is available here.

This piece was originally published on blackcoffeeandotherstories.wordpress.com in December 2014.