Comparison of three major coffee farms in Colombia: coffee varieties. Shading trees and fermentation treatment

Professional barista communication, please pay attention to coffee workshop (Weixin Official Accounts cafe_style)

This time I write about three coffee farms in Colombia. The first one is La Palma y El Túcan, attracted by their fermentation method. The other one is Finca Santuario, because I recently bought their love elixir, so I want to know more. The third one is Finca Santuario's sister farm Immaculate Coffee Farm.

1. La Palma y El Túcan

Just their LOGO pink matching and fermentation method, are very different from the traditional, so curious I looked for information.

La Palma y El Túcan (LPET, Chinese for "Palm and Lark") is a coffee shop and processing plant founded in 2011 by three Colombia youths Elisa Madrinan, Felipe Sardi and Carlos Arevalo.

The estate is located in Cundinamarca, in Bogotá, the capital of central Colombia. Cundinamarca belongs to the eastern part of the Andes Mountains in Colombia. It has several microclimate zones with an average temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, an average humidity of about 75%, and 1600 hours of sunshine per year. It belongs to volcanic soil, so it is very suitable for planting and animal habitat.

In Colombia, due to economic considerations, many small farmers do not have good technology, equipment and talents. Therefore, the quality of production is not guaranteed. Moreover, they cannot find good buyers. They all give up coffee cultivation one after another. Young people also prefer to leave the countryside and find jobs with higher incomes in cities. Therefore, LPET was established in 2003 to work with about 200 small farmers within a 10-kilometer radius to ferment their coffee beans in a more controlled and innovative way, showing the high quality and unique potential of Colombia beans, helping small farmers in their hometown to have more people know and have better income.

LPET purchased its own farmland in 2011, which was abandoned for 15 years, about 18 hectares, at an altitude of 1,600 - 1,800 meters. The nearest city is Zipacon, about 50 kilometers from the capital Bogotá, near the river Río Apulo. They have divided themselves into 14 production areas with special terroir conditions. In their own laboratory, they study different fermentation methods to bring unique coffee to everyone.

Another project of LPET-Estate&Varietal,

It is to plant rare varieties such as Geisha, SL-28, Sidra and Typica on the estate.

Elisa Madrinan and Felipe Sardi of La Palma y El Túcan

LPET has experienced staff, hand-picked flawless and ripe coffee cherries. Their processing method is Wet Mill, the fermentation tank equipment is specially designed for small farms, suitable for processing small amounts of coffee.

Since they handle different microlots of coffee beans, you should look at the farmer's name on the package when buying, so you can clearly know the origin, place of origin and variety of coffee beans.

Fermentation tank for LPET

LPET uses fermentation methods that utilize microorganisms found in coffee cherries, sugars from coffee bean slime, or different cultures or yeasts. By adjusting different variables (such as temperature, humidity, oxygen content, pH and sugar content), each microlot has a different appearance. Three fermentation methods temporarily used by LPET.

1)LACTIC FERMENTATION (Anaerobic)

The method uses lactic acid bacteria to convert sugar in coffee beans 'slime into lactic acid in the absence of oxygen. However, in the absence of oxygen, lactic acid bacteria are easily affected by environmental factors such as temperature and pH, so each fermentation process should be properly controlled. This fermentation method, lactic acid can be particularly sweet coffee, chocolate, butter, wine and other flavors, silky taste.

2)ACETIC FERMENTATION (Aerobic)

This method uses yeast to ferment, and the alcohol produced will be converted to acetic acid in an oxygen environment, so the coffee beans will have more wine, orange acid, yellow stone fruit (such as peach, plum) flavor.

3)Mixed/double fermentation

The coffee bean will show its red berry fruit, fragrant flavor, silky taste and long aftertaste.

2) Finca Santuario

Camilo Merizalde, owner of the estate, was born in Valle de Cauca, Colombia. He watched adults handle coffee since childhood. After graduation in the United States, he served as the manager of a Colombia food and beverage factory, so he had the opportunity to return to Colombia to purchase coffee beans. Seeing that Colombia is a high-yield coffee region, but often overlooked, so decided to let the world know Colombia fine coffee.

Camilo began by planting coffee on his wife's family's Popayán farmland, consulting botanists from Japan, the United States, Central America and Colombia to divide the farmland into 266 plots, each of about 0.25 hectares, most of which were named after plants (such as Heliconias: false paradise flower, Guayabos: pomegranate) so that he could observe and study the climate and growth of each area. The estate is about 135 hectares, of which about 62 hectares are used for coffee cultivation.

Located in the high altitude volcanic area of 1890-2010 meters, the temperature difference between day and night is large, suitable for planting high-quality coffee, coffee trees are planted on the slope. He named it Santuario (Temple).

Wider spacing between rows of coffee trees prevents the spread of disease and increases production. Camilo also planted a large number of leguminous trees on farmland, which not only converted nitrogen in the air into nutrients, but also provided shade, wind protection, tree roots protection and soil moisture retention.

Camilo was initially intended to be quality-oriented, planting low-yielding, more fragile native varieties such as Typica and Bourbon. Nevertheless, coffee beans do very well in the cup test. Other rare varieties cultivated include Eugenoides, Geisha, Mibirizi, Mocha, Purpurescents, Sudan Rume, etc.

Camilo has been searching for the best way to grow, not only to find different irrigation methods to cope with climate change, but also to build a large greenhouse to cultivate 26 experimental varieties. In recent years Camilo has discovered four natural hybrids on the estate. At the peak of the harvest season, ripe coffee cherries are peeled twice a day using a clean, small and simple washing method. After that, the peeled fruit will be fermented for 35-40 hours without water.

Camilo believes this dry fermentation is more stable and improves the acidity and sweetness of the coffee beans. After fermentation, it will be sun-dried for 14 days in UV-resistant plastic shelters (raised bed dried).

Finca Santuario's first coffee beans in 2005 have been well received, and since then the beans from this estate have often become competition beans (such as WBC champion Sasa Sestic and 2013 Australia Barista champion Matt Perger). Some of the more recognizable batches are Finca Santuario Sofia(variety: Red Bourbon), Finca Santuario Heliconias(variety: Red Bourbon), Finca Santuario Guayabos (variety: Yellow Typica) and Finca Santuario Aquacatillo(variety: Red Typica), named after his daughter.

3) Café Inmaculada

Camilo Merizalde is associated with Intelligentsia Coffee's special boutique coffee line. The series, launched in 2011 under the Café Inmaculada project with Camilo Merizalde and his childhood friends Julian, Andres, and Santiago Holguin, includes Sudan Rume, Laurina and Maragesha.

The Holguin family started their coffee business in 2010 after working in sugar cane plantations in Valle del Cauca and palm plantations in Nariño.

Farmland is located in Pichinde, Andes Mountains. The advantages are fertile soil, plenty of sunshine and rain, which are very suitable for growing coffee. The estate started with only about 5 hectares and has grown to 50 hectares, of which 30 hectares are planted with coffee.

Camilo's two estates (Finca Santuario and Immaculate Coffee Farm) are apart

The Holguin family coffee house, collectively known as Immaculate Coffee Farm, consists of three farms: Las Nubes, Finca Inmaculada and Finca Monserrat. Cultivate rare varieties such as Rume Sudan, Eugenoides, Laurina, Gesha, Maragesha, etc.

Jane said rare varieties

Sudan Rume(also known as Rume Sudan RS-510 or RS-510): Originated from the Boma Plateau in southeastern Sudan, connected to the Ethiopian highlands, it is a wetland in the region. It has a good disease resistance gene, but the yield is small, and the coffee berries are relatively small, so it is not a widely cultivated variety.

Laurina(or Bourbon Pointu): From Réunion Island, a volcanic island in the western Indian Ocean and Madagascar in the east. A previous article also described Arabica beans as low-caffeine and sweeter.

Bourbon Pointu (Bourbon pointed body), clearly said to be Bourbon species, but the tree species is relatively short, the leaves and coffee nuts are also small, the beans are round in the middle and return to the pointed body at both ends, and the beans are relatively hard.

Maragesha: A natural blend of Maragogype and Geisha that can only be found in Finca Santuario.

Eugenioides: Coffee beans with half the caffeine content of regular Arabica and known for their sweetness. Coffee trees are short, have small coffee berries and low yields, and after three years of greenhouse cultivation in Finca Inmaculada, each tree produces only about 320 grams of green coffee beans per year.

Three farms one by one.

☁ Finca Inmaculada

5.12 ha, altitude 1670-1700 m, cultivated varieties Geisha, Sudan Rume, Laurina and Eugenoides.

Shade trees:

Tephrosia (shade trees with grey leaves (nitrogen that can be converted into air for nutrients)), Guamos (i.e. Inga edulis, common shade trees in coffee fields, more than 300 species, fast growing and able to convert nitrogen from the air), Guavas, Carboneros (Calliandra lehmannii, which has large leaves and is easy to grow, and birds and wildlife eat its fruit) and lemon trees (which simply provide shade and produce edible fruit).

☁Finca Monserrat

13.98 Hectare, Altitude 1700-1800 m, Cultivated with Sudan Rume, Laurina, Geisha, Yellow and Red Borboun, Castillo and Caturro.

Shade trees:

There are Tephrosia, lemon, orange, citrus, plantain, banana (which has the same advantages as plantain: fast growth, easy planting, edible fruit, and some resistant varieties inhibit weed growth),Chachafruto (Erythrina edulis, similar to inga, pod-shaped fruit, which converts nitrogen into air).

☁Finca Las Nubes

11.21 Hectare, Altitude 1750-2000 m, Cultivated with Sudan Rume, Yellow and Red Borboun, Geisha, Laurina and Eugenoides.

Shade trees:Tephrosia, Guamos, Guava and Lemon

Organic orchids and vegetables are also grown.

WBC champion Sasa Sestic used the estate's Sudan Rume in the 2015 WBC competition to make them known to more people. Coffee beans used at that time were 50% sunburned and 50% carbon dioxide macerated. Carbonic Maceration is a common fermentation method for red wine. Las Lubes coffee beans are sealed in stainless steel containers and use carbon dioxide to form an oxygen-deficient environment to convert the sugar of coffee clay into alcohol and carbon dioxide, which complicates the flavor of coffee.