Mauricio Duque, 51, used to have a conventional coffee exporter - a big company. With the changing world order brought by the pandemic, in 2020 his company went out of business and he all of a sudden had the most priced resource available - time.
He decided to fulfill his lifelong dream: producing the best Colombian specialty coffee. He wanted to achieve this in a sustainable and clean/natural way - something very conspicuous when observing his processing and crop management.
In 2016 he started to look for a farm that met his needs - especially those regarding soil characteristics and elevation. In 2019 he bought a farm near Neira (Caldas), that surpassed his expectations - hence the name of his business: Dulce Misterio (Sweet Mystery). The complete farm has 13 hectares and is 100% coffee, ranging from 1,850m to 2,040m. He says that particular mountain has very unique soil characteristics, where every single crop has sweeter than usual attributes, that can also be confirmed when measuring Brix Degrees in oranges, sugar cane and other fruits. To choose the farm he analyzed historical data from different competitions in Caldas, where he wanted to see if there was a specific area where most winners came from. It came down to two mountains, where Neira was his choice since, besides having great soil and altitude, it was just one hour away from his home.
He is a firm believer in clean and simple coffee processing - emphasizing that processing should enhance the attributes - the terroir.
