Colombia: El Diviso Anaerobic Natural — SPECIAL OFFERING
$36.00
Roast: Light
Region: Pitalito (Huila)
Farm: El Diviso
Process: Anaerobic Natural
Elevation: 1800m
Variety: Ethiopian Landrace (74112)
Cup: Peach Nectar, Strawberry Sour, Lavender Lemonade
Cupping Notes
Bar none (and this is me speaking personally), this is the best coffee I have ever had. This has set a new bar for me as a coffee professional. (--Arrott)
When we cupped this coffee originally, our eyes widened and our lips puckered. It was unlike anything we had ever tasted at the cupping bowl. The best words to describe this coffee would be "different, potent, and absolutely delicious."
Conner even remarked, "That's not coffee." It tastes like pure fruit juice, but with a fermented twang... almost like kombucha or a sour beer.
Here’s what we’re tasting:
Peach Nectar. The upfront fruit notes in the coffee are extremely present. Oftentimes, notes can feel like a sales pitch, because they're interpretive and subjective. In the worst cases, "I taste this" or "I taste that" can translate to a few notes of "if we had to narrow it down." It's not every coffee where the notes are this obvious and just punch you in the face. The peach note does that here. It is big and juicy and sweet.
Strawberry Sour. Perhaps our favorite thing going on in this cup is the fermented aspect. The anaerobic processing of this natural coffee imparted something reminiscent of a sour beer. It's over-the-top fruity, paired with delicious, but undeniable fermented funk. It's like the best kombuchas out there.
Lavender Lemonade. There is a citrus zing here too, much like lemonade. We almost landed on "strawberry lemonade" as a note (due to the strong strawberry note above), but found there was something notably delicate and floral in the undertones. We were most reminded of our famous housemade lavender lemonades.
Farming Notes
This stellar coffee was secured through the hard work of our friends at Falcon Coffee and the farmer himself, Nestor Lasso.
In his own words:
“We are the third generation that has been growing coffee. Our grandfather, José Uribe, was the founder of the farm El Diviso. With the work of all the family and constant savings we were able to build the infrastructure to process differentiated coffees; searching for better quality, both in coffee and our lives. After a long trial and error period we managed to standardize different processes, getting a better income in order to plant new varieties that allowed us to have better quality. One of our dreams is to produce specialty coffee that reaches all the world.”
Well, Nestor, your coffee certainly reached us and we are confident its impact will be felt here and beyond.
Here’s a little more of what our friends at Falcon had to say about Nestor Lasso and the details of his coffee’s processing:
“The coffee is picked carefully to get only very ripe cherries that tend to be between 24 and 26 brix. The over and under-ripe cherries are removed (hand-sorted).
The coffee undergoes an oxidation process for 48 hours in plastic cans, where the leachates and the cherries are mixed. At the end of this process, the pH of the coffee is 4.5.
The coffee is floated to rid impurities and any hollow beans and unwanted materials. This is done with cold water (10-12 degrees Celsius).
The cherries are washed with water at 50 degrees Celsius and immediately introduced into plastic cans.
The cherries are stored in sealed cans for 80 hours at 35 degrees Celsius. A saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast type T58 is sprayed on the cherries (1g of yeast per 5kg of cherry). This yeast is commonly used in the beer brewing industry to strengthen beer profiles.
The coffee is removed from the cans and taken to a mechanical drying system to dehydrate the cherries during 12 hours. Finally, it is moved to a parabolic drying system for approximately 15 days or until target moisture is reached.”
If you’re the daring type, this will certainly go down in your coffee hall of fame as well.