COLOMBIA, Elkin Guzman, El Mirador, Pitalito, Huila

Producer: Elkin Guzman.

Growing altitude: 1680m above sea level.

Botanical variety: Tabi.

Process: Natural Thermal Shock.

Tasting notes: Maple syrup, mango, peach, blackberry, banana, passion fruit flavours.

Roast date: 18 July, 2024

This special lot of Tabi is harvested and produced at El Mirador, located in the town of Pitalito in Huila, Colombia.

El Mirador is a 32-hectare farm with 30 hectares of coffee, owned by Elkin Guzman. The farm includes a broad collection of varieties such as Catiope, Mokka, Gesha, Bourbon, Caturra and Tabi, which is a variety developed and released in 2020 in Colombia by Cenicafe by crossing the varietals; Bourbon, Typica and the Timor Hybrid.

Elkin Guzman has been surrounded by coffee since he was born and today, he has been recognized as one of the best multigenerational coffee producers in Colombia in the last decade. He is very passionate and interested in his scientific approach to coffee production. He is inspired by methodical research, experimentation, and is something of a data nerd, especially when it comes to unlocking the secrets to top-quality coffee.

Elkin’s family has celebrated over 70 years in coffee, and for 15 years, Elkin has been dedicated to researching and developing post-harvest processing techniques. All this research and experience has brought Elkin to develop multiple processing techniques depending on an individual lot of coffee, including carbonic maceration, lactic and acetic natural processes, and natural thermal shock.

Harvest and post-harvest procedures are highly regulated for consistency and quality. The first step is to measure the sugar content of the coffee cherries (in degrees Brix), followed by density and volumetric separation. The final decision is which processing method is best suited to bring each lot to its fullest potential.

With the thermal shock process, the coffee selected for this process goes through sieves to be selected by hand, removing underripe or overripe cherries, being very selective with the highest quality fruit to start the process. The selected coffee is left in plastic tanks to favor the anaerobic environment for 60 hours. After this time it is moved to larger tanks to generate an oxidation/aerobic where water is added at 35˚C to 40˚C degrees seeking to be constant and homogeneous throughout the mass of coffee for 60 hours, at the end the water is removed and cold water is added to stop the fermentation for 8 hours. The final stage is drying for 18 to 24 days.