Description
Colombian Excelso
Colombia is a country of great diversity, both geographically, culturally, and linguistically – it boasts over 68 ethnic languages as well as Spanish and even English in one of the archipelagos. Its land stretches from the Amazon Rainforest to the highlands of the Andes mountains, and was once the worlds largest producer of washed coffees, from three main geographical areas trisected by the Andes mountain range. This leads to two key harvest times in the country, with fresh coffee available all year. The varietals and farmers will change throughout the year, the work being done by the mills and our QC lab to ensure consistency in the cup.
Rust, a fungal disease appearing as yellow spots on the leaves disrupting photosynthesis, decimated the production back in 2009. The country has seen a rise in resistant varietals since then as production has slowly regrown. Typica was gradually replaced in the 1970’s with the introduction of Caturra, with its higher productivity and more compact growth allowing for increased crop density. The Colombia variety was released in 1982, a cross between Caturra and the Timor hybrid that delivered better rust resistance, and Castillo in 2005 bringing further improvements on both productivity, rust resistance and cup quality.
When ripe, the coffee cherries are picked and go through an initial flotation sorting to remove underripes, sticks, and general debris before passing through a pulping machine and working their way down the washing channels to the fermentation tanks. Here, they will sit for typically 8-14 hours, before moving to the drying patios or guardiolas for controlled drying down to 10-12% moisture. Typically in Colombia, this is carried out on the farm, with processed cherries then being taken to a dry mill for careful grading, tasting, and blending. The coffee is stored in parchment until ready for export, when it is hulled at the dry mill and bagged for shipping. Bean sizes 15-16 are graded as Excelso.
FARM/COOP/STATION: Racafe
VARIETAL: Castillo, Caturra, Colombia, Typica
PROCESSING: Fully washed
ALTITUDE: 1,100+ meters above sea level
HARVEST MONTHS: March-July, September-December
Racafe
Racafe, one of Colombia’s leading exporters of specialty coffee, began life in Cundinamarca in 1929 when the Espinosa brothers started their first business initiative renting bicycles – by 1953 the attention had turned to coffee, and the company rapidly grew to have milling operations in 9 cities across Colombia. Today it remains a family business, albeit a substantial one – representing over 5,000 individual producers and 45 producer groups.
They have not sat back as they have grown, in 2018 they milled their first coffee using a solar energy powered thresher in their facility in Huila. They have further created CRECER, their internal sustainability program to further push progression across the industry and amongst their farmers.
Their commitment to quality coffee is matched only by their solidarity with producers in the regions they work to create a truly sustainable marketing approach. In their words “We believe in building a better country through leading by example, respecting the law and transmitting to our families the importance of being a good citizen. We promote environmental management and building community by means of open and respectful communications.”
DRW has worked with Racafe for many years developing our regional offerings as well as commercial lines with them, and look forward to continuing our relationship.
Information and pictures supplied by DRWakefiled
How to store coffee at home
To keep your coffee as fresh as possible, you need to protect your coffee from air, sunlight, heat, and moisture. These all will contribute to making it stale and lose flavour.
We suggest keeping your coffee in an airtight container, in a cool, dry cupboard. Our bags all have a de-gassing valve, to let out CO2 that the beans produce once roasted, it’s not just there to sniff the coffee, and a reusable ziplock. So if you don’t have a fancy coffee jar just push the air out the bag, zip the lock and give the bag another squeeze to get any remaining air out.
Do not store your coffee in the fridge. Roasted coffee absorbs moisture from the air (hygroscopic) and will also take up surrounding aromas. The aromas and moisture levels in the fridge will react with the coffee and delicate flavours will deteriorate.
Need help on which grind size? Click here
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