Colombia | El Paraiso

We’ll have a slew of delicious Colombian offerings on the menu this year, and this El Paraiso is no exception. With the fruit sweetness akin to an Ethiopian, acidity more in line with a Kenyan, and a buttery balance we’ve grown to love from Colombian coffees, there is something for everyone to love with this one. 

Finca El Paraiso is located in Gigante, Huila – Colombia and is run by Ernedis Rodriguez, who our partners at Coffee Quest have been working with since 2016. The farm sits at an elevation of approximately 1,840 meters and consists of 14 Ha in total, half in coffee and half in reserve. 

Of those 7 Hectares in coffee, approximately 70% is in Caturra, 10% in Castillo and 20% in exotic varieties (Bourbon Sidra, Caturra Chiroso, Java, and Pacamara). Only the ripest cherries are picked and upon arriving to the wet-mill, are floated, de-pulped and the dry-fermented for 84 hours. After washing, the coffee is then laid to dry in a greenhouse for anywhere from 18-25 days, depending on the weather.

This lot is a field blend, composed of Caturra, Chiroso, and Sidra. Ernedis is one of the hardest working and smartest producers we know and his efforts pay plenty of dividends! Not only has he commented to us that he views his farm as a company (like every farmer should), but being able to sell his coffee at elevated prices, consistently for so many years, means that he has really become the CEO of the company; he doesn’t work the coffee fields anymore, he oversees the workers he hires to clean, fertilize and pick cherries and focuses his efforts on the processing and drying. It’s crazy to think that he was manually floating cherries for 7 hectares of coffee, but that is how he was doing it for 5-10 years!

Finally, a couple of years ago, he was able to upgrade his infrastructure and now has a wet-mill that auto sorts and floats the cherries prior to de-pulping. This is a huge step and saves Ernedis an enormous amount of time and work, allowing him to better focus his attention on other areas of the business. Some ecological examples of this are a 3-step process for composting the cherry pulp, using an eco-washer to wash the coffee (these eco-washers use literally a fraction of the water to wash the coffees, compared to the traditional washing) and using organic methods to filter the “honey water”. A one-of-a-kind producer that we are thrilled to be able to work with. 

We taste: strawberry preserves, pomegranate, cherry limeade, raspberry pop tart, syrupy

Single-Origin Details:

Producer: Ernedis Rodriguez
Region: Gigante, Huila, Colombia
Process: Washed
Variety: Field Blend
Elevation: 1840 MASL