Luis Aníbal’s family has over 60 years of experience growing coffee. He had his start just over 30 years ago, after receiving a small lot of land as a gift from his father when he was only 9 years old. For nearly twelve years now, he has worked with specialty coffee exclusively: him and his family work together as a team to run the farm, where they grow over 13 exotic varietals. As Luis puts it, this is the way to develop a healthy career in the coffee industry because “by growing different varietals, you have the opportunity to grow in the industry, with the expectation that it’ll allow you to become a key player in the future.”

Luis's Farm, Finca Villa Betulia, is located in Acevedo, southern Huila. The soil here is mainly made up of volcanic ashes and clay loam. Though it is not at a particularly high altitude (1500-1650 masl), the farm is located right next to a thick rain forest hence day temperatures are slightly lower than average, leading to the kind of slow coffee cherry maturation that increases sugar content in the fruit and a sweeter cup profile. In recent years, with the aid of Cofinet, Luis has begun experimenting with natural and honey processing like this lot that we have here.

About the Variety

The rare Pink Bourbon variety is a spontaneous and natural variation of the Red and Yellow Bourbons, scarcely seen and only actively cultivated by a handful of farmers in Colombia. The trees look like a Bourbon and the cherries ripen to a unique pinkish colour and the leaves are broad, in a similar fashion to Geisha trees. The pink bourbon is also more resistant to coffee diseases and often showcases Geisha-like qualities in the cup, with floral aromas and clean citrus notes. 

About the Processing

The cherries were hand-picked following a strict ripeness criteria and hand-floated to remove any defective cherries before undergoing a 15 hour dry fermentation. It was then carefully dried dried on raised beds before a second hand-sorting selected only the best cherries for milling. 

The End Results

What we enjoy most about this coffee is its sweet and syrupy mouthfeel, with notes of sticky blueberry compote, dried fig with a rose floral finish. 

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