Neighbors & crops
MIGUEL CASTRO MARIN
EL VERGEL
Village: Cachipay, Cundinamarca
Altitude: 1500 M.A.S.L
Variety: Castillo
The Profile
Don Miguel is 64 years old and has been involved in coffee for all of his live, his parents were also growers and this is how he inherited his farm “El vergel”. He has formal studies on the Agronomy field and this is why he is passionate about farming and coffee and everything that has to do with the countryside.
His farm is located at 1550 m.a.s.l. and has an extension of approximately 5 hectares planted in coffee. He has the farm planted in beautiful Castillo trees, and he uses both plantante and citrus trees for shade. His wife also helps him with the farm, and he has 3 Childs, 2 of them live at the farm and also help with everything. Don Miguel is one of the most dedicated growers of the Neighbors Crops program, he is always looking for improvements at the farm and for the crop, and he is very committed with the maintenance of the plants.
Miguel has a wet mill at his farm, and since he started to work with us he is very happy with our model, since one of the mayor difficulties he had was finding labor. Now he sells his cherry to our project, and he estates that he has had great economic and also “time” benefits, since he can also dedicate some of his hours to the maintenance of the farm and for other crops (that help to improve his income).
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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