Neighbors & crops
FAUSTINO REYES
LA FLORESTA
Village: Anatoli, Cundinamarca
Altitude: 1600 M.A.S.L
Variety: Castillo
The Profile
Don Faustino is 60 years old and has been growing coffee all of his life. He was born into a coffee-growing family which explains his devotion to the crop. His farm, La Floresta is located in the village of Anatolí, very near to LA PALMA & EL TUCÁN’s farm. Faustino has been living in the region for more than 30 years. He became the owner of his farm 25 years ago when the previous owner offered the land in order to cover a debt he had with Faustino. Today he lives on the farm with his wife, two daughters, and one grandson; they all help with the maintenance of the crop.
Before they became part of our Neighbors & Crops program, they used to sell their parchment coffee to local buyers and cooperatives. However, like most producers in our region, they´ve also been having difficulties for the last couple of years when attempting to hire skilled labor that can guarantee good cherry-picking, no damage to the trees, plus the extensive labor required in coffee processing.
For the main harvest of 2014, we convinced the family to work with us and become part of our project. The main drivers of their decision were having access to our skillfully trained cherry-picking team, and being able to sell their coffee cherries without having to process the crop themselves. We are pleased to see Faustino and his family benefit from our program, and we hope to continue to work alongside farmers like Faustino for many harvests to come.
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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