Finca La Julia Anaerobic Java
The coffee we have chosen for our June subscription on filter is an exclusive nanolot from Finca La Julia. Only 3 boxes of this anaerobic fermentation Java lot was produced. Read on to find out what makes this coffee so exceptional.
About the farm
Finca La Julia hides within the mountains of the western range in the Colombian Andes. It is located 1,700 masl in the municipality of Trujillo, Valle del Cauca and is currently managed by Niko and Karo, two siblings and a second generation of coffee growers.
Although the farm started in the 90s by their parents Octavio and Angela, they only began specialty coffee production in 2015. Niko began with Java because he was looking for rare and exotic varietals hard to find in Colombia. They planted Java, Tabi and Geisha in mid 2015 and started the first cherry picking in April-May of 2017. Niko later started trying different fermentation and drying processes including naturals, honeys, and semi-washed.
About the variety
Java has a long history of cultivation. As indicated by the name, the variety was introduced to the island of Java directly from Ethiopia by the Dutch in the early 19th century. It has since been introduced in Central America by the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD).
It was originally thought to be a Typica selection. But genetic fingerprinting of molecular markers has revealed that Java is a selection from an Ethiopian landrace population called Abysinia. It represents an interesting alternative to the Geisha, which has high cup quality but is more resilient for small farmers with better tolerance of coffee leaf rust and coffee berry disease. Java has elongated fruit and seeds and bronze-colored young leaves.
About the processing
First, a brief introduction of the experimental processing called Anaerobic Fermentation. In general, anaerobic means oxygen-free. This is usually achieved by placing the coffee into hermetically-sealed environment during the fermentation stage. Aside from yielding new, unexpected flavours, the anaerobic process provides a high level of control of the sugars, temperature, pressure, pH and time.
This coffee underwent 36 hours of dry anaerobic fermentation under 20 degrees celsius. It is then followed by sun drying on raised beds for 15 days.
This new wave of innovative and experimental processing has been a recent trend observed over this pass couple of years. Producers are now paying more attention to the complexities of microbiology and its effects on flavours.
The End Result
The result of all that hard work is a lively and complex cup, with incredible sweet tropical fruit notes of pineapples, dried mango as well as fresh strawberries. We are really excited to share this amazing coffee with our monthly subscribers.
Subscribe here now for more exciting coffees lined up on our Monthly subscription programme.