Since 2018, the majority of Passenger’s coffee buying in Colombia has been focused on the tiny hamlet of Divino Niño in the department of Huila in southwest Colombia. While we continue to intentionally focus our buying dollars on a select number of producing communities, like Divino Nino, we also seek out a small number of exceptional lots from outside of these core foundational partnerships each year. Just to the north of Huila is another of Colombia's many notable coffee-producing regions, Tolima. Nestled in the Andean mountains along the Magdalena river basin, Tolima’s climate is rugged but ideal for producing specialty coffee, with altitudes exceeding 2000 masl. Until somewhat recently, Tolima was one of the main operating areas for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, during their decades-long civil war with the Colombian government. As a result, Tolima was a precarious place to grow and source coffee for much of the early 2000’s. It was not until 2016, and the ratification of a revised peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC rebels, that access to this prized growing region began to ease.

Right around this time, in 2016, producer Israel Hernandez decided to plant 1200 seedlings of the prized gesha variety on his 10-hectare farm, called Buenos Aires, in the municipality of Rioblanco in Tolima. Up to that point, he primarily focused on growing varieties more common to the area, such as castillo and caturra. Just four short years after planting, his gesha took fourth place at the Colombian Cup of Excellence competition in 2020. Considering that a new coffee plant can take a number of years to first bear fruit, the quality he has achieved just some 6 years after planting is a testament to his careful farm management, cherry selection, and processing approach. As the son of a coffee producer, Israel was involved in coffee production from the age of 15, so it’s perhaps no surprise that his wealth of experience has brought him to where he is today, over 50 years later. As of 2024, there are no signs of him slowing down, to the contrary, he’s recently expanded his production to include an additional farm location he’s calling El Mirador.