La Claudina #2 - Colombia - Espresso - Natural Coffee

TASTE NOTES
Spiced Orange, Lemon Verbena, Candy

VARIETAL
Castillo, Tabi, Colombia

PROCESS
Natural

ALTITUDE
1400 - 1600 masl

Juan Saldarriaga has two farms, El Encanto and La Claudina, both located near the town of Bolivar in Antioquia. Both farms are between 1400-1800 metres above sea level and incredibly steep. All of the picking is done by hand and it is difficult to travel around the farm other than by foot or on donkeys. We’ve been lucky enough to visit Juan several times and always love cupping together with him at his lab in Bolivar, coffees from both farms are excellent but La Claudina coffees consistently stand out for us as some of our favourite Colombian coffees.

This lot is a blend of Castillo, Tabi and Colombia varieties that has been dried using a cold dryer similar to those used for gently drying apricots, this coffee has been dried slowly over 20-30 days slowly. The slower more careful drying prevents the coffee from ageing quickly like some mechanically dried coffees. Drying is a real challenge due to the humidity and temperature during the harvest season (from September to January). The cold dryer is very helpful particularly for naturals where unwanted over fermentation is a real possibility.

El Encanto and La Claudina are both 60 hectares but only about 42 hectares of each is planted with coffee, the remaining land is left as forest and nature reserves. In addition to that the farms work very sustainably with lots of shade crop planting and using minimal inputs.