Today, we are discussing Yensy Galindez, her incredible washed coffees, and why buying her coffee is at the top of our list every purchasing season.

But first, a bit about us. Unity stands on a lot of principles and ideals. We want to buy coffees from producers we truly love. We want to pay more for better quality coffee, especially from female growers, who generally are marginalized in power and in finances. We want to buy more from younger growers who otherwise are leaving the farmlands in droves to work in tech in the cities, an opportunity not really available for the average Colombian grower, who is in their 60s. We want to form long term relationships with our farming partners, ones where we can buy all of their coffee, and provide as good of a guaranteed buy as a small roaster like us can provide.

Frankly, a lot of the time, we do not hit this mark. We buy from new sources we know might be fleeting. Producers drop off, much out of our control. We often have to buy a coffee outside of our sourcing metric to hit a customer's target price profile. We buy some of the coffee, but not all, leaving the producer / importer holding the bag (Adam's biggest unspoken pet peeve of green buying). We fail at our ideals as frequently than we hit them.

With Yensy, we check all the boxes. And this is why we want to talk about it. We have bought all of her lots (except 1 that got blended that we bought some) since 2020. In the beginning, that was like 5 bags a year. Her production is up to close to 30 bags annually, and we buy it all at the asking price, which is significantly above the cost of a random washed Colombian coffee. Her quality is generally phenomenal, and only a few times over the years has it dipped below that to just "very, very good" status. 

A small serotonin blast of the flavor profiles we generally get from her coffee before we move back to serious discussion: VERY tropical fruits, like guava, papaya, mango, always kiwi, passion fruit, and citrus. Other great crisp fruits like grape and lingonberry, along with fresh stone fruits like peach, nectarine, and plum. This coffee is brilliantly clean, and we do not get a lot of melon or berry notes. Instead, we get lots of tea notes, be they green, black, or white. No tricks or games, just a fantastic washed coffee with tons of clarity and complex flavor notes.

Her mill is completely unremarkable, reminding me of my visits to Colombia a decade ago and blown away by what some campesinos can produce with very little equipment and investment. Since then, all we have seen is a stratification of certain well-off producers bulking up in what appears to be an arms race for higher quality coffee solely done by using fancy, expensive equipment. Seeing what Yensy does with her small pulper just makes us want to buy in more. This coffee rules, tastes fancy, is not produced fancy. We are talking vibrant acidity, all of the tropical fruits, long floral finishes, sparkling clean throughout. This is what we look for, this is what we get, and we couldn't be more elated when more Yensy drops.

We are with her on her replanting journey, which is not a lot of things roasters can say, because most of them don't buy from the same growers for this long of a stretch. Her Tabi is legendary, the best expression of that variety we've had, but the trees are getting a bit old and aren't producing like they once did. We visited her last year to plead not to replant, but were humbled and educated on our visit. She was right, as she probably is all of the time regarding her coffee. The Tabi trees were absolute monsters, and even trimming them back isn't the best long term solution for her yield or vision. She has noticed her premium going up (partially because all coffee is going up, partially because she now plants varieties like Pink Bourbon), and she may be able to get even higher prices with newer varieties. Her future is looking spectacular, with vibrant Sidra, Gesha, and Chiroso trees, alongside her currently producing Pink Bourbon. 

By the way, we do love gimmicks and over processing. Check out our Ombligon Toast Crunch. This is a triple fermented ombligon that also got cinnamon put into the final phase. We printed a funny looking bag that reminds us of a cereal we grew up with as kids. But we aren't all jokes. Yensy and her coffee, as stated above, is at the absolute iron core of our world. The staple that proves we operate by our philosophy and our word. It is one of the most "Unity" coffees out there.

One more thing we love about her is that she doesn't like to be stagnant. We see her taking barista courses, roasting her own coffee, and hitting the cupping table. For many producers, this is way, way out of pocket. Not so much an unreachable goal, but perhaps a goal they didn't know existed or had access to. More like an unlikely event. And she is thriving in it, loving it, mastering each part of the process for the true love of coffee and excellence. 

On our Substack soon, you will be able to read an interview with Yensy, where we ask her (and she asks us) several deeper questions in order to really get to know each other beyond the transactional. Additionally, Yensy has offered to share a bunch more about the leadership work she does in her community. As of August 2026, she put this work on hold to go to Choco, Colombia, to provide relief for the earthquake victims. Yensy is a true legend, someone who has shown her best at all possible moments, and this is why we love working with her.