About this Coffee
It’s January 2023 people, and the question on everyone’s mind is “how can I start the year off on a good note?” For some of us that’s cutting out the naughty bits of life, the drinking, the indulgences, maybe finally sticking to that budget or workout plan. Perhaps others of us are resolving that we will enjoy life more, cut back on stress, manage our finances and finally stop wasting all our hard earned cash on uber eats and fast fashion. Honestly, I don’t really know where I am going with this, other than to say happy new year to everyone reading this (all 6 of you) and best wishes for 2023. We all deserve a good year after the never ending horror of the last several. And in that spirit of well-wishing may we at Saints are happy to serve up this wonderful fresh lot from our good buddy coffee alchemist Edwin Norena.
This coffee is a nice traditional red bourbon, a variety long regarded as being choc-full of intense red-fruit acidity, grown on Edwin’s farm Campo Hermosa just outside of Quindio. Red bourbon coffees tend to check all the boxes for us but of course this wouldn’t be a special coffee without Edwin adding his coffee alchemy to create a completely unique tasting experience. I should warn you that what follows is a shocking and sometimes confusing recounting of modern experimental coffee processing techniques (although if you didn’t want that you probably wouldn’t be reading this.) After harvesting Edwin takes this all red bourbon lot and gives it a two stage fermentation in nearly airless barrels. This is commonly referred to as “anaerobic” fermentation in the coffee world these days. He does this with the cherry on the seed for the first stage lasting roughly 5 days. Next he “de-pulps” the coffee, removing the shriveled and fermented cherry husks from the seeds inside. Then he takes the leftover fermentation juice, referred to by the wine industry term as “mosto”, filters it and then ferments the freshly de-pulped seeds anaerobically for 5 more days, adding in the mosto juice from stage one. After these two fermentations Edwin proceeds to dry the coffee without washing it, similar to how a more “standard” honey processed coffee would be dried. He calls this his coffee cherry honey process. I know I know it’s an insane amount of work, but the results speak for themselves. This coffee has explosive strawberry acidity, wonderful citrus sweetness, and a super balanced black tea body and finish. It’s really spectacular and rare, a coffee that could only come from Campo Hermosa and Edwin Norena.