About the producer: This coffee was grown by Jairo Arcila at the Santa Monica Farm in Colombia. Jairo is a third-generation coffee farmer from Quindio, Colombia and he has two boys Carlos and Felipe who are also co-founders of Cofinet. Fun fact! The Alternate Route team were able to spend some time with Felipe when we visited Colombia in 2022!
Jario purchased his first farm in 1987 and now owns 6 different farms all located in Colombia. During the harvest period, Jario is able to provide a number of jobs to locals which has a significant economic impact on their community. Besides coffee Jario also grows other agricultural products such as mandarin, orange, plantain and banana which is either sold at local markets or used for highly experimental and innovative coffee processing like we see here! This is our 4th year purchasing coffee from Jario and certainly won’t be our last!
About the coffee: This coffee was exposed to a dry anaerobic fermentation period of 72 hours with the pulp on. During this fermentation stage, banana and wine yeast were added. The cherries were then pulped and placed to dry on raised beds until the ideal moisture content was achieved. The purpose of adding wine yeast and banana are to create a highly experimental and innovative coffee processing method. It is designed to create a coffee with complex, fruity and wine-like flavors with added tropical and sweet notes from the banana. Adding banana during fermentation introduces natural sugars, enzymes and compounds that can be absorbed by the coffee beans. The result is a coffee with a unique and memorable flavor profile appealing to those who enjoy more adventurous specialty coffees.
This microlot is 100% Castillo! The castillo variety is more productive than Caturra and resistant to coffee leaf rust.
