Guillermo Cardona and his son Andres have been producing stellar coffees around the town of Casabianca, in Colombia's famous coffee growing region Tolima, for years. They run operations partly through Andres' own coffee shop in Casabianca, Café Basáltico, which is itself a key part of their love of growing a strong culture and appreciation of speciality coffee locally. A huge portion of Colombia's coffee consumption comes through imported products, rather than their incredible locally-grown coffee that we in most consumer countries are able to enjoy daily, maybe even two or three times a day if you're in Mutual HQ.
Guillermo is also a member of the CDNT co-operative, or Caficultores Diferenciados del Norte del Tolima, which is made up of 8 producers around northern Tolima. Originally formed by the fantastically talented and driven producer Herbert Peñaloza Correa. CDNT is, in many ways, a prototype of the structure that Herbert and the team have now built over the years in their export company LaREB. Built around creating what coffee growing communities really need and how producers can best pool resources to improve quality and secure autonomy in an industry that is notoriously one-sided, with little care for producers' needs.
