Huver Castillo Velasquez is a second-generation coffee farmer who transitioned into specialty coffee production in 2014, as falling global prices made traditional farming practices unsustainable. He began implementing new post-harvest protocols to improve the coffee's flavour profile, and after years of trial and error, his family's farm produced its first exportable harvest of specialty-grade coffee in 2018. That success encouraged them to keep experimenting with processing techniques.
This lot, S6, is a Geisha variety grown at Finca La Golondrina. The cherries undergo anaerobic fermentation for 48 hours in a culture medium of orange leaves, sugars, and beer yeast. The coffee is then depulped and washed for an initial drying stage, while the culture medium continues fermenting in the tank. Once the coffee reaches roughly 50% moisture, it is re-immersed in the culture medium for 24 hours to build and fix flavour, then washed with cold water to preserve aromatic compounds. It's dried again to 11% moisture, for a total of 15 days on raised beds.
