Farm Info

This lot of Striped Bourbon Dark Room Natural is harvested and produced by El Mirador, located in the town of Palestina in Huila, Colombia, 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.

In the world of differentiated coffees, Elkin and his team have been experimenting and evaluating variables that help improve the quality of the coffees they handle to offer an excellent drink for coffee consumers worldwide for more than 13 years.
The area of the farm is 31 hectares, with sandy-loam and clay-loam soils with good organic matter conditions that aid in the excellent nutrition of their coffee trees. El Mirador is managed under semi-shade systems to optimize temperature regulation and the effect of photosynthesis in coffee plantations.

Dark Room Natural Process

The idea of the Dark Room process is to optimize a dry environment that continues day and night under the control of humidity and temperature, by the incorporation of dehumidifying equipment for the extraction of moisture and to generate a dry environment. Extractors and fans are also used, which allows the regulation of the internal temperature of the dryer that is as airtight as possible. Due to all these steps, a lower humidity of 1.5 % during the day and between 0.6 and 1 % at night is achieved, which has allowed a constant drying time between 12 to 15 days – reflecting a change in the sensory profile of the coffees that are dried here, the coffees present a great cleanliness in the cup, different notes to any traditional natural or under another drying system.
Coffee is arranged in beds and baskets which allows us to handle more drying volume per area.
The idea of the coffees dried here is to intervene in the shortest fermentation time, where the terroir and the genetics of the variety can be expressed. For this reason, shorter fermentation periods of between 36 and 48 hours are used, where the cherry is disinfected in water with citric acid and a water temperature of between 25˚C to 35˚C degrees.