El Encanto LOT 4 - Colombia
COUNTRY: Colombia
FARM/COOP/STATION: El Encanto
VARIETAL: Tabi
PROCESSING: Washed
ALTITUDE: 1380 - 1600
OWNER: Luis Saldarriaga
SUBREGION/TOWN: Ciudad Bolivar
REGION: Antioquia
FARM SIZE: 40 ha
HARVEST MONTHS: September to January
FLAVOUR NOTES: Juicy and sweet dark red/purple fruits, floral, black tea, caramel
ABOUT THIS COFFEE
El Encanto is one of Juan's two farms, and it happens to also be his father's favourite farm, where they like to retreat from the hustle and bustle and enjoy the beautiful views and tranquility. It's an exceptionally well kept coffee farm, and even has a variety garden to show the huge range in coffee plants. Juan Saldarriaga is a young producer who took over his family’s farms in 2012 and started to plant several different and new cultivars, everything from unusual Castillos, Caturras and Tabis to Bourbon, Geisha and SL28s, among others. So far he has been figuring out how each variety performs in the environment. In the future he plans to increase production of the varieties that thrive. Juan has built several different types of drying facilities, changed the processing, and started to manage a few other farms in the area. We are especially surprised by the effect the improved drying has on his coffees. He is drying a lot of our washed coffees under shade, and the naturals in a specially designed mechanical «cold dryer». El Encanto is one of Juan's two farms, and it happens to also be his father's favourite farm, where he likes to retreat from the hustle and bustle and enjoy the beautiful views and tranquility. It's an exceptionally well kept coffee farm, and even has a variety garden to show the huge range in coffee plants.
The farm is located at 1380 - 1800 masl in the city of Bolivar in Antioquia. It’s currently about 26 hectares of coffee. The varieties are mainly Variedad Colombia, Castillo, good amounts of Tabi, Small amounts of Sl 28, Maragogipe, Geisha, Bourbon, Caturra chiroso, Castillo Tambo. He’s got a traditional disc pulper with separator and fermentation tanks. For drying they have 200 square meters of newly built shelves that can be moved from sun to shade. For other drying experiments they move the coffee to their other farm La Claudina where they have a roofed facility with beds, a traditional parabolic dryer, a very interesting mechanical «cold» dryer.
PROCESSING:
Pulping and fermentation:
After cherry selection the cherries are soaked in water and the floaters removed before they go in to production. The coffees are then pulped in a traditional disc pulper with a separator for greens etc. The quantity and availability of the tanks will sometimes determine what kind of fermentation they are doing. When they have big amounts like 5000 kg of cherries in a day they dry ferment everything in tanks. They add fresh cold water and rinse every 6-8 hours. Normal fermentation time will be about 24 hours. As the altitudes are not too high at the wet mill they want to keep the temperature down and control the fermentation. When the amounts are smaller and for experiments they ferment one batch as described above, but they add a new batch of coffee after 24 hours. The total fermentation time can be 48 hours, but still with a rinse of cold water every 6 hours.
Drying:
They have 4 different drying options. Traditional silo (mechanical dryer) cold dryer (mechanical), African beds in a parabolic dryer (greenhouse) and African beds in the shade drying area. The traditional silo is only for the conventional and “commercial” qualities. They occasionally also move microlots from El Encanto to La Claudina for drying experiments and to produce naturals. For the shade and parabolic they mainly do washed coffees, and washed and naturals in the cold dryer. It takes from 20 up to 30 days and the space and quantity they can do there is limited. They are also experimenting with honey processing in shade. In the parabolic dryer it takes about 10 – 20 days. So far they have focused on Tabi in the parabolic as well as some honey. The cold dryer has been used both for washed and naturals, but naturals have priority as they really seem to benefit from the controlled environment. They experiment with drying from 25 degrees to 40 degrees. Most naturals are dried between 25 and 30 degrees.
HARVESTING
For La Claudina and El Encanto they only do one harvest per year. Normally from September to January. They control this by stripping the trees in the end of each harvest. They lose some quantity but they believe it helps with the quality in that area.
Picking:
They have one person on each farm managing the pickers and the quality. They always pick the coffee by block and keep everything separate. That way it will also be processed by cultivar. The pickers get a good premium for every bag of high quality. They separate the bags of the higher qualities to go in to quality production and special prep. The cherries for naturals are always going through an extra and very thorough hand sorting and selection before they go to the drying.
COFFEE IN COLOMBIA
Colombia has been producing and exporting coffees renowned for their full body and bright acidity since the early 19th century. Thanks to its wide range of coffee-growing regions, microclimates, and altitudes, Colombia can meet demand for coffee throughout the whole year.
There are more than 500.000 coffee producers in Colombia, 80% or more having less than 3 hectares to work with. Coffee is grown all over the country and is spread out in 19 departments (regions), most of them along the three mountain ranges coming from the Andes in the south.
The biggest and most well-known regions are Antioquia, Huila, Tolima, Cauca, Nariño, Caldas, Santander and Sierra Nevada. The latitudes range from 2 degrees to about 12 degrees. Altitudes for coffee production can vary from 1200 – 2200 meters above sea level. All producers are picking, pulping, fermenting and drying their coffee themselves in their “micro beneficios”. The coffee is then sold in parchment and delivered a local town to a bodega. The bodega is a purchasing point for parchment and can be represented by a growers association, a cooperative, an exporter, or just an independent local middleman. There’s always someone buying random coffee, while some others have quality programs or strong relations with the producers.
