Neighbors & crops
HECTOR ARIAS
PIE DE CUESTA
Village: Zipacon, Cundinamarca
Altitude: 1550 M.A.S.L
Variety: Castillo
The Profile
Hector is 50 years old, and he has grown coffee for the last 40 years. As he comes from a traditional coffee family from the region, for him, these crops have a special meaning.
Don Hector co-owns his farm, Pie de Cuesta, with his mother Ana Elvira Rivera, a 92 years old traditional coffee farmer.
At Pie de Cuesta, don Hector and his mother have 1.000 Castillo coffee trees, planted in 2.000 square meters, at an altitude of 1.550 meters. Since they don’t have much land, they can’t live just from the crops, so don Hector also works as a full-time driver. He tells us that he doesn’t think his son is going to continue with the family tradition since he is already working bu his own in other matters away from the countryside.
For don Hector, joining the Neighbors & Crops program has come with a significant benefit as he doesn’t live at the farm. He doesn’t have to worry about the picking or processing of the cherries, and he can be sure that he will sell his harvest at a higher and fair price.
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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