Neighbors & crops
BENEDICTA GONZALEZ
EL OASIS
Village: Cartagena, Cundinamarca
Altitude: 1600 M.A.S.L
Variety: Castillo
The Profile
Benedicta is 68 years old and has been producing coffee for over 20 years. She owns a 2-hectare farm where she planted 5000 coffee plants, among Castillo and Colombia varieties. It is at 1600 m.a.s.l. Her parents were coffee producers and she follows this tradition along with some members of her family.
She has 2 daughters and one son, her daughters help her with some coffee labours on the farm and his son works in Bogotá. She diversifies her incomes by pig and chicken farming. Before becoming a part of the Neighbors & Crops program she used to sell her coffee at a cooperative in the nearest town. Also, she says that she struggled with cherry picking as it was really hard to find workers who could dedicate time to do it.
Since she joined the program she no longer has to worry about finding cherry pickers as we can provide her with our very well- trained cherry picking squad and we can offer her higher prices for her coffee. Now she can focus on other labors and spend more time with her family. We are happy to help ease her duties!
Key Facts
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Proccesing Methods
Lactic
This kind of fermentation is classified as ‘Anaerobic’ as oxygen has minimal interaction with the cherry. Once the cherries arrive at the mill, they are hand sorted and placed in sealed tanks. With no oxygen involved, bacteria feed on carbohydrates present in the mucilage favoring a higher concentration of Lactic Acid, creating a unique profile of the resulting cup.
Honey
The Honey Process begins with a pre-fermentation stage of 45 hours at the wet mill. From here the cherries will start the de-pulping stage, passing through three stages of quality control before removing a percentage of the skin. While the drying stage, coffee will be placed in African-style raised beds for over 15 days. Due to the levels of sugar and moisture, the first days will be crucial to avoid microbial activity prolongation. Finally parchment coffee will pass through the mechanical drying machines to end up the drying process.
Mixed
This method involves a combination of stages found in lactic and acetic processing methods. First, all hand-sorted cherries will go through a short pre-fermentation step. Similar to lactic processing, the cherries are placed in airtight fermentation tanks with limited oxygen. Once removed from the tanks, we pass them through three levels of quality control before having the skin removed by a pulper machine. From there, we leave the beans resting in the fermentation tanks to undergo an acetic fermentation, agitating them from time to time. Once the process is completed, the beans are transferred to African-style raised beds to begin the drying phase.
Our Mixed Fermentation Processing produces a very balanced cup profile with medium to heavy body.
Bio-Innovation
Through the Bioinnovation process, La Palma & El Tucán honors the main principles of organic farming. They first capture and reproduce microorganisms found in their farm’s beautiful forests, to create their own fermentation substrate. Then, they mix this substrate with perfectly ripen geisha cherries, in a clay pot for 100 hours. This combination allows them to create a sustainable closed cycle. After the fermentation, they remove the leftovers and reuse them as compost.
If you wish to request additional information about the processing of your microlot, such as fermentation time or type of drying, please let us know by filling this form.
We will get back to you soon with detailed information.
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