Colombia Alexander Filter

Tasting notes: Papaya, Riesling, Guava.

Coffee breakdown:
Country: Colombia
Variety: Castillo, Caturra
Process: Washed
Altitude: 2250 masl

Small Batch has long loved buying coffee in Nariño, as it is geographically, climatically and culturally very distinct from neighboring states, and the cup profiles are no less unique.

This year, Small Batch has developed new relationships with a small group of producers organized in a community group called San Bosco. San Bosco benefits from a microclimate that is relatively dry and protected from the cold, despite its high altitudes. The group is relatively new to processing specialty coffee, as climate change has meant that the area’s cultivation has somewhat recently shifted from legumes and coca towards coffee in the last six years or so. The area is geographically isolated, and producers are motivated to learn more about specialty coffee processing. They have linked up with a more well-established group called Cultivando Futuro, which has supported the San Bosco producers by offering cupping labs and technical processing advice.

This lot comes from 27 year old Alexander Cabrera, whose farm El Guayacán is at a breathtaking altitude. He doesn’t have many shade trees on the farm because the high altitude keeps the weather cool, and the trees need all of the heat and sunlight they can get. Alexander’s grandfather left the farm to him, but it used to produce beans and corn. Alexander first planted coffee on the farm six years ago after noting that temperatures weren’t as cold as they used to be when he was a child, and convincing his father that it could be an interesting alternative. He started with 1,500 castillo trees, and after slow expansion, now the farm has 4,000 trees. He proudly notes that six other neighbors now work in coffee after seeing his success.

When he first started planting coffee, Alexander attended a coffee processing workshop, and he has been experimenting since then. He and his family work with 10-15 pickers during the harvest season, and they’ve slowly built up the processing infrastructure. He uses a plastic tank to float cherries and keeps them in a sealed plastic bag for an initial fermentation in-cherry, and then he de-pulps and keeps the seeds in a separate sealed plastic bag for another 72 hours. He takes the washed, de-pulped seeds down from the farm and to his home in San Bosco where he has drying infrastructure set up. The coffee dries in 12-15 days.