Luis Alberto Jojoa, Finca La Perla del Otún
Charguayaco, Pitalito, Huila, Colombia 🇨🇴
Luis Alberto Jojoa was picking cherries for Antonio Castro when Castro offered to sell him a piece of land, paid in days of work rather than money. "I earned this land with the sweat of my brow," he says of La Perla del Otún, two plots clinging to the sides of a canyon in the hamlet of Charguayaco, in Pitalito in southern Huila, on the edge of the El Silencio nature reserve. His first plot, bought for next to nothing because it is so hard to reach, is also the highest: Ombligón grows there at around 1,900m, in the shade of two mountains, and ripens slowly. Winner of the Colombian Cup of Excellence in 2006, Luis also grows Caturra, Castillo and Pink Bourbon. Until now, Noma Kaffe bought a blend of the first three varieties from him. In 2025, Carolyne Lane asked him to separate the Ombligón, a cautious 100-kilo trial he first viewed with suspicion, before declaring it the best cup on the table in a blind tasting. His method, the "cochadas", consists of accumulating several days of picking in the same tank: the first days act as a starter for a fermentation that, in the cold of the farm, would otherwise be too slow. The aim is not to go funky, only to loosen the mucilage. 2026 is the third year of work between Luis and the noma team.
