After a couple of months we are ready to launch our second Pinnacle coffee release! Having cupped several tables of offer samples we were most excited by this lot of Caturra from Luis Carlos Guzman. Please note, this is a pre-order. The second batch of this coffee will be roasted and dispatched on 17th October. Any other items purchased alongside this will be fulfilled on this date.
The Producer
Luis Carlos Guzman, alongside his partner Niyireth Roa Ortiz, are producing coffee on their farm Finca El Diviso near the small town of Guadalupe in Colombia’s Huila department. The farm itself is 5 hectares, with just 3.5 planted out with coffee trees. In 2009 the first coffee trees were planted here by Carlos’ parents, and then in 2014 he took over the operation with 4,000 of his own coffee plants. Through the subsequent years they have evolved their approach on the farm, by replanting different cultivars, amend harvesting and post-harvest processing protocols to focus on specialty coffee production. The cool climate and high altitude are conducive to producing complex, dense coffees. Luis has participated and scored amongst the top producers in local coffee competitions, a testament to his hard work. He now has over 15,000 coffee trees, predominantly Caturra.
Their Approach
A lot of the innovation in coffee production, in Colombia in particular, that we have witnessed centres around modifying the post-harvest protocols of cultivars like Caturra and Castillo. More expressive cultivars like Gesha, Sidra and Pink Bourbon can push through into the cup and be immediately identifiable, whilst using different fermentation techniques to alter and intensify a cup’s profile is a really interesting method with these more ubiquitous varieties. For this lot of Caturra they are harvesting ripe cherries and then holding them for 24 hours in cherry, for a ‘reposado’ phase which starts a quasi-maceration phase. This is a step that we have seen either championed as a great way to enhance fruity flavours or utilised as a more mechanical step in order to soften the fruit flesh and ease depulping (especially in instances when producers have a manually cranked pulping machine) whilst also pitched as an absolute no-no step that risks introducing mouldy or over-fermented characteristics. Cleanliness, temperature, intention and motive all need to be checked and weighed up when we start to talk about this step as either being beneficial or detrimental to a lot of coffee.
After the maceration phase the coffee is depulped without water, sieved and refined by hand to remove defects, and then fermented for 36 hours under clean water, during which time the batch is periodically stirred for uniformity , to dissipate the concentration of dissolved mucilage and to level out the temperature. After the mucilage is all scrubbed off of the parchment they are parcelled up in permeable sacks to drain for a day before being put onto raised drying beds for slow, controlled drying for around 20 days.
Luis’ message to customers is a humble one:
"We feel happy to hear you liked our coffee that we produced with such love and effort at our farm. We will keep working hard to produce coffee you enjoy!"
For us this lot is delivering a clean and sweet profile, but through the post-harvest methodology is intensified and concentrated, which is completely in step with what our Pinnacle range is supposed to showcase. We hope you love their coffee as much as we do
