Neighbors & crops
CIRO ALFONSO GONZALEZ
LA PALMERA
Village: Alto Grande
Altitude: 1400 M.A.S.L
Variety: Castillo
The Profile
Ciro Alfonso is 54 years old and has always been dedicated to the countryside. He’s been producing coffee for over twenty-three years. And 6 years ago, when he bought his farm, La Palmera and since the farm had already some coffee plantations, he sealed his commitment to coffee. In La Palmera, he has 3,6-hectares planted with 5.000 Castillo coffee trees at 1.400 m.a.s.l. aside with some citrus fruits.
Don Ciro and his wife Aurora (in the pictures) are parents of three. Alexandra of 20 and their eldest child, is studying a professional career in Agronomy, so that someday she can run the farm by herself. Samuel of 17, attends high school and helps his father with some farm duties in the afternoons. And finally Sara, a 9-year-old girl.
Since joining our Neighbors & Crops program, Don Ciro has noticed a significant difference in his entire production process. We provide our trained team of pickers during harvest, we transport the coffee cherries to our wet mill, and because of his lack of processing infrastructure, he no longer has to find a way to process and dry his cherries. We hope to continue helping our neighbors, in the same way, that they help us!
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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