Colombia - El Paraiso (Washed + Anaerobic)

Country: Colombia
Region: Piendamó
Varietal: Castillo & Colombia
Farm: El Paraiso
Process: Washed +Anaerobic Fermentation
Altitude: 1,930 MASL

Flavor Notes: Sangria // Hibiscus // White Tea

"Tropical" is an anaerobically processed lot by Diego Bermudez, from his farm, El Paraiso in collaboration with the Santuario Project. That was a mouthful of a sentence, let’s unpack it together.

Starting with Finca El Paraiso (Paradise), a farm with the elevation for incredible coffee production in the Peindamó municipality of Cauca, Colombia. Diego Bermudez doesn’t leave the responsibility of great coffee on the shoulders of his pristine farm, he takes matters into his own hands. This lot is made up of Castillo and Colombia varieties, which is interesting for such an amazing coffee. These aren’t typically the highest scoring varieties, but they are disease resistant which is a huge benefit for a farmer to grow them. This is where he and the Santuario Project, a group who team up with farmers to develop tailored processing methods, come into play. They’ve teamed up to take these solid, but not typically mind blowing varieties, and used forward thinking and expertise to create something that is just that, mind blowing.

This lot went through two fermentations, both anaerobic. The first was for 28 hours in cherry, at a regulated temperature between 19℃, the coffee was then depulped, and fermented again for another 40 hours in it’s mucilage. Fermentation was stopped at the chosen PH levels with a “thermal shock” using cold water to stop the fermentation exactly when desired. This is one of those rare coffees that can surprise casual drinkers, and the most experienced coffee tasters. Similar to it’s sister lot El Paraiso Red Plum, we get vibrant fruity notes with a surprisingly clean profile, it’s hard to describe but these coffees are as fruity as naturals, but as clean and bright as washed coffees. In Tropical we get notes of Guava, Peach, Rose, and White Grape.