Colombia Nolberto Espresso

Tasting notes: Stone fruit, creamy, muscovado, grapefruit residual.

Coffee breakdown:
Country: Colombia
Variety: Typica Mejorado

Nolberto Olaya is the third generation in his family to grow coffee and has been working in coffee for 24 years. He is an expert in holistic and regenerative farming, managing his farm entirely organically by carefully decomposing farm outputs to break down micro-nutrients and return them to the soils. Nolberto rarely purchases store-made organic inputs to keep his trees healthy.

Nolberto has been focusing on organic agriculture for the last decade and has been teaching his children to work in the fields so they may continue the legacy. The family roasts coffee for themselves and sells roasted coffee in their community. He has been described as a real genius in organic agriculture, spraying a fertilizing spray on his trees monthly that he makes on his farm, mixing Super Magro, worm leachate, and micro-organisms. He also sells these products to friends and neighbors so they can farm organically as well.

His harvest is always healthy with great production year after year. 90% of his farm is under shade trees like Guam, santafereño, cachingo, and leucaena, which provide organic material and fix nitrogen back into the soil. As climate change brings more rains to the steep hillsides of El Ruby where he farms, he is especially glad to have been thinking of the future when he focused on returning shade trees to his farm, as erosion has not been as much of a problem this year. Nolberto's daughter, an avid bird-watcher, has identified over 130 species of birds from their lush farm.

Nolberto and his son Yefferson work closely together to carefully process each lot. Yefferson has trained as a sample roaster and cupper. For all lots, they start by floating cherries to remove over- and under-ripe cherries. The coffee first begins its fermentation process from within the cherry during an initial cherry fermentation, with cherries kept in sealed plastic barrels with valves for off-gassing. Then, it is de-pulped and left for 60-70 hours in sealed barrels. Careful measurements showed that when barrels are properly sealed, the temperature does not get above 18 C. From there, the coffee is washed twice, first in a full tank of water and then again with less water. For drying, they dry it first in marquesinas for 2-3 days to avoid mold issues, then take the coffee to dry inside their home in an attic-like space. For special lots like this chiroso, they are careful to ensure the coffee is dried under a roof on the second floor of their home, rotating it once a day every day for 20 to 25 days, depending on weather conditions.