El Meson | Colombia | Single Origin

Origin Colombia

Farm El Mesón

Location Acevedo – Huila

Process Pulped Natural

Altitude 1600 - 1800 M.A.S.L

Flavour Profile Honey, figs, carmel and brown sugar

Varietal Pink Bourbon

Farmer Floresmiro Guaca

This variety was discovered in the San Adolfo district between 2008 and 2010 after one of the most severe coffee rust pandemics that have affected coffee growing in Colombia. During these years, the phenomenon La niñal, characterized by extreme rains, was presented in the tropics, which caused the volume of rains for those years to increase by 200%, this favored the conditions for the rust fungus to proliferate in a way disproportionate affecting the plantations of Caturra and Colombia varieties that were the most cultivated at that time.

By the end of 2010, the producers had experienced losses close to 80% of the cultivated area and only a few isolated lots survived the plague. This aroused the curiosity of the producers, among them Floresmiro, who found that some Bourbon trees that until now had gone unnoticed, had not been devastated by rust. The particular color of the cherries of these trees was even more striking as they did not ripen red but rather a color that resembles a pale pink tone.

From that moment, the producers began to renew their coffee plantations with seeds obtained from these trees, seeking to develop a crop that was not affected by rust. A couple of years later, when the coffee plantations began production, the marketers had the opportunity to taste and found a cup profile very with notes of red fruit, dried blueberries, cherry, hibiscus, a very delicate coffee and it was given the name Bourbon Rosado, resembling a coffee with a feminine character. After this, this variety became very popular in Acevedo, however the quality was not the same in all cases and the coffees did not exhibit the characteristic profile and many producers dedicated themselves to producing commercial coffee.

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Floresmiro together with his brother Andrés, began to collect information to understand the optimal point of collection and to be able to develop a processing method with which to maintain a consistent cup profile. Through direct observation and with the help of tools such as the refractometer, they began to separate cherries of different stages of maturity and thus they realized that this variety had a different behavior from those that were already cultivated, since the harvest was anticipated and the maturation was not completely. homogeneous in the tree for which it was necessary to carry out a selective harvest where first all the dark grains were collected and later the completely ripe grains.

Additionally, the refractometer allowed them to realize that the brix degrees developed by the Rosé Bourbon in its optimal state of maturity, were superior to varieties such as
caturro, however at that time they still did not know the potential that this could represent in processing, since At that time, Colombia only allowed the export of washed coffees and processing under other methods was not yet used.

Throughout the years the Guaca brothers continued learning and training in quality issues, they learned to taste, implemented a basic laboratory on the farm and this allowed them to have greater control over the quality of the coffee they processed, in addition this gave them the possibility to classify qualities and to be able to obtain better sales prices. The profits from the sale of coffee have been used to improve the infrastructure, expand the drying area and of course plant more coffee and venture into other varietals such as pacamara and geisha.

Floresmiro and Andrés continue to learn day by day and carry out many experiments seeking to improve their processes, things do not always go well, from time to time the coffee ends up defective or excessively fermented, however they say that this is part of learning and that in the end They are willing to take the risk to be able to find a better sale price since coffee is their livelihood, it is their business and it is the one that has allowed them to prosper over the years in a region where opportunities are limited and where what prevailed for many years was violence, guerrillas, illicit
crops, etc.