This anaerobic, black honey processed Pink Bourbon lot from Wilder Lasso is an amazing example of what can be created when marrying exotic varieties, meticulous farming and inno...
This anaerobic, black honey processed Pink Bourbon lot from Wilder Lasso is an amazing example of what can be created when marrying exotic varieties, meticulous farming and innovative processing. When selecting this coffee, we were blown away by its complexity and sweetness. In the cup we are enjoying refreshing notes like black grape and melon, rich, sweet pomegranate notes like grenadine and a herbal character similar to a Negroni.
Although Wilder grew up on his mum and dads farm, El Diviso, he has only been working as a coffee producer since 2017, which is amazing considering the world class coffees that they are producing! Like many young people that grow up on coffee farms, Wilder left to get a degree and work in the city and up until recently he had a career as a vet and worked with some of the best horse breeding farms in Colombia! However, after visiting his family farm in 2017, he saw that they were struggling financially and decided to change career and take El Diviso in a new direction, with specialty coffee. With his training in genetics and love for learning, he set up a coffee variety program in the local town of Tocora and has been experimenting with fermentation and processing to elevate the cup quality and character. The family now have four small farms and produce a wide range of exotic varieties and experimental processes and their coffees have already featured multiple times in coffee competitions!
Wilder Lasso operates all four of the family farms utilising as many techniques as possible from Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). GAP is an international set of standards set out to ensure the safe and sustainable production of crops and livestock. These standards include practices such as intercropping to promote biodiversity, rejuvenating land that has degraded over time, use of organic fertilizers made from by-products, water management to reduce usage and treat wastewater and correct training of farm staff to ensure safety.
Wilder also has an out-growers program where they will process cherries from nearby farms, using their expertise, to help other farms get higher prices for their crops by boosting the quality.
Pink Bourbon is a variety that has gained a lot of attention in the speciality coffee world in recent years, and this is mostly because of the delicious cup quality that it can produce. Interestingly, Pink Bourbon has not actually been genotyped yet so we can’t actually be sure what exactly it is! As the name suggests, the cherries are usually a pinkish colour, although they can also appear more orange and sometimes striped. This has led people to believe that it is hybrid of Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon.
It is also believed that there are different strains of Pink Bourbon and as it is likely to be a hybrid, some are stable while others can revert back to either Red or Yellow Bourbon. This can also lead to varying cup qualities from different lots, some can be very high scoring, with high sweetness and floral notes, similar to some coffees from Southern Ethiopia, while other lots of Pink Bourbon sometimes can have a flatter cup profile.
Like many high-altitude Arabica coffees, cherries at El Diviso are hand-picked, this is partly due to the topography and cost of harvesting machines but also allows producers to be more selective with the cherries that they harvest. Once the ripe cherries are picked, they are taken to the mill for processing which is on the farm. First the cherries are floated in small tanks to separate out the ripe cherries from the under-ripes. Next the cherries are anaerobically fermented in Grainpro bags for 96 hours before being pulped. After pulping, they are laid to dry on raised beds in the shade for a lower temperature. This creates more oxidation which makes the mucilage form a crust and the sugars stick to the parchment. Finally, coffee is stored back in the Grainpro bags for 20 days for stabilization before it is milled and shipped to London.