The Tayronaca Cooperative (Asociación Tayronaca) was founded in 2014 by producers from Colombia’s far Northern coastal area. The farms of these producers are nestled in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, just 26 miles from the Caribbean coast.
With altitudes of 1,700 meters above sea level just 42 km from the Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada is one of the world’s highest coastal ranges.
The Magdalena coffee zone is home to incredible biodiversity and has the ideal environmental conditions to produce specialty coffees. The Asociación Tayronaca has over 200 members from the surrounding communities. Most of these communities are Indigenous Arhuhuaco, Chibchan-speaking people, and descendants of the Tairona culture.
Most families do their own harvesting and processing with a manual pulper at their home. The leftover cherries are used as fertilizer for the coffee trees. The coffee is fermented for 12 to 48 hours and dried on patios.
