Colombia Finca Los Pinos
Colombia Finca Los Pinos
The next few lots that we are offering about are relatively pico, rather than the previously exhausted nano term. In many ways, they make NO commercial sense at all. By the time we have profiled the coffees, we are 1/10th of the way through the lot. However we like a challenge and when there’s a tasty coffee with a good connection this good, we are usually in! In some parts of the world, natural process coffees are often frowned upon and viewed as inferior, and left for the internal market. When this happens, unsurprisingly, that coffee is not going to be treated with the love and attention that a highly prized Pico lot, like this, is.
Top Trumps
Farm: Finca Los Pinos
Owner: Luis Ernesto Beserra
Region: Tolima, Colombia
Altitude: 1536 Meters above sea level
Farm size: 2.3 Hectares
Varietals: Caturra and F8
Cup potential:
Aromatically, this is floral and red fruits. In the cup there is the balance between ripe tropical fruits, yellow plums (gages) and unusually for a natural, there is a tiny bit of green apple acidity. So far we have brewed this at 60g per litre and it has worked through Kinto, Aeropress and even batch brew filter. In espresso, admittedly I have used an E65 grinder (as the showroom Peak was euphemistically “on holiday” Grrr!). 17g of coffee into 34g of espresso in the late 20 seconds, is magic in milk all the way up to a 9oz drink. For espresso, we have taken this into the late 30 seconds and it has exuded all of the tropical sweetness of the filter with the tiniest bit more “Xing” or acidity if you will. As a cup comparison, this is not a million miles away from the Rwandan Buf natural we had in its first year.
Farm Info
These Pico lots as we are now calling them (until it gets suitably annoying) are from the ASCISP. “Asociation de Caficultores Indigenas de San Pedro”. These coffees are produced by small scale producers in the Paez Community, in the Tolima region. There is a lot of care going into processing and encouraging these small producers. These farms are mostly USDA (organic) approved. For the amounts of coffee involved the administration doesn’t make sense to certificate here.
