Colombian Finca Villa Betulia One Roast
Colombian Finca Villa Betulia
Last year Luis’ anaerobic Rosado Bourbon was up there with my personal favourite coffees of 2021. I have bought a minute amount of this coffee to keep the promise of at least one new coffee coming to our website every week. I got there, just! This coffee will feature in our May coffee subscriptions.
Due to fashion and chasing value, there is going to be a shortage of nice clean and easy drinking washed coffees this year. In previous seasons, there was a rush to grow gesha. It was the emperor’s new clothes. Record sums were achieved at auction and the dream of achieving big money looked like a reality for a few top producers. I wrote a thing about it here. This year everything is anaerobic following lock-down coffee trends. I think every trend has boundaries and peak, or expiry date if you will. I will park that thought here.
This is a Rosado (or pink if you prefer?) ripening bourbon, which is pretty much exclusively grown in Colombia as a varietal. This is an intriguing and elegant cup of coffee. Colombia has revolutionised its coffee quality and value in the last few years. Behind each good-washed coffee, there is a story that unfolds in the cup, as the brew cools. It is just honest and pure.
Top Trumps:
Owner: Luis Anibal Calderon
Farm: Finca Villa Betulia
Area: Acevedo, Huila
Altitude: 16-1800 Meters above sea level
Process: Washed
Varietal: Pink or Rosado Bourbon
Roast: Light Filter. Cool dropped.
Cup Profile 🥣
|Aromatics: Malty| Body: Light/Medium| Acidity: Bright elegant and citric|
In the cup, there is a bright citric acidity with rich, ripe brown fruit sugars dark cloying chocolate, gingerbread with a grapefruit finish. This is the best of all worlds filter coffee, with tart acidity, deep sweetness, and a lingering finish.
Filter Recipe:
Based on 60-65g per litre
Espresso Recipe:
Starting at 93C
Milk-based drinks: 1:2 (16-18g of coffee into 33-35g of espresso) in 26-30-ish seconds
Espresso: 16-18g of coffee into 45-50g of liquid in 30-36 seconds.
Surprisingly this cuts through into 9oz of whole milk if that’s your leaning. The larger drinks are subtle, gingerbread, and malty. The smaller the milk drink the more intense this becomes, acidity singing through the milk, and the espresso is bright, minerally rich, and (unsurprisingly) rich in grapefruit-like citrus.
I would not recommend this for non-dairy milks. It is just too light a roast. Great espresso though!
Farm Stuff
In 2019, Luis Anibal Calderon, began planting native trees amongst his coffee trees to reduce the need for fertilizers, preserve his soil and improve his cup quality. His farm is called Finca Villa Betulia and located in Acevedo, Huila. This year he planted 2000 Yellow Bourbon trees, 9000 Pink Bourbons, 2000 Geshas and 1000 Tabis.
This coffee comes to us from Cofinet. A Colombian-centric company, who is part of a family that has been growing and distributing high-quality green coffee for over 80 years. In 2015, Cofinet started exporting specialty coffee. Some of their coffees arrive in the UK in hope of being sold to roasters quite regularly now. We ordered this sample via Colombia and bought it ahead so we could ensure that we would receive it.
