Colombia Panela Sticky - Double Anaerobic Pink Bourbon - José Giraldo

We Taste - Sweetened condensed milk, brulee, Medjool date

José Giraldo's leadership of Café 1959 has been three generations in the making. Ten years ago, the young Colombian producer, then working in textiles, pivoted to help his father tend to the family's coffee farm after José's mother passed away. José took the family's commodity grade coffee to the 2015 SCA Expo and received tough, but fair feedback. Determined to improve cup quality with a science based mindset, José began working on fundamentals of coffee production: ripe cherry picking, cleanliness in production, and slow, even drying. Sparked by conversations with contemporaries, he also began implementing ideas about controlling fermentation through pH, Brix, and temperature. José's father is a food engineer and professor, so these concepts came naturally. Over the following years, José refined his processing methodologies with Panela Sticky becoming one of their most celebrated microlots. 

As José's popularity has grown, so has his need to source more coffee - this is where farming partners at Finca El Diamante come in. Cultivated near Acevedo, Huila, the high elevation farm yields a classic full, buttery mouthfeel, which José's processing then takes to eleven. To reflect its name and build a syrupy sweetness in the cup, Panela Sticky cultivates the sugary Pink Bourbon variety, picked at peak ripeness (22 Brix degrees). Freshly-picked cherries of this Ethiopia lineage variety are sealed in GrainPro bags for an overnight drive from the farm in Huila to José's processing mill in Quindio. Nocturnal transit keeps the cherries fermenting at a lower temperature, critical to avoid off-flavors from over-fermentation. Now 24 hours off-harvest, the processing crew at Café 1959 depulps the cherries, before filling and sealing sanitary tanks with the sticky mucilage coffee for the first of two 24 hour anaerobic fermentations. The next day, the coffee is washed and rinsed of its mucilage layer. The coffee is then placed back into a clean, dry, sealed tank for one more 24 hour period. After 72 hours of total fermentation time, the coffee is washed and rinsed a second time, then spread out on raised beds to dry under shade. By conditioning on raised beds, while strategically allowing airflow under parabolic dryers, the green seed's exterior is dried slowly and deliberately over 40 days, allowing the core to catch up. This evenness in interior-to-exterior moisture percentage improves everything about the coffee - from roasting to the aftertaste. 

Our light roast touch allows the sweetness and texture of this exceptional coffee to shine. We recommend resting two weeks off-roast for by-the-cup brewing or single-dose espresso prep to get the most out of this unique Anaerobic Pink Bourbon.

Roast: Light
Process: Double Anaerobic Fermentation, Double Washed - Cherries are picked at a ripe pink color (22 Brix degrees) and gathered in GrainPro bags. Including a cool, overnight drive from the farm in Huila to the mill in Quindio, the cherries are initially fermented for twenty-four hours. The next day, the pulp is removed and the mucilage-covered coffee is anaerobically fermented in airtight tanks for a second twenty-four hours. The day after, the coffee is washed and returned to the airtight tank for a third twenty-four hour fermentation. The fermented coffee is washed again, now drying as parchment coffee on raised beds under parabolic dryers for ~40 days.
Variety: Bourbon Rosado aka Pink Bourbon
Elevation: 1800 masl
Farm Location: Town of Acevedo, Huila Department, Colombia
Farm: El Diamante
Producer: José Giraldo + Cafe 1959
Processing Location: La Clarita Lab, Quindio Department, Colombia
Grades / Certifications: Microlot
Harvest: September 2024

Brew Guides
Espresso: 1:2.4 in 26-28 sec.
Filter: 1:17.0