COLOMBIA Nestor Lasso

This coffee comes from 24 year old producer Nestor Lasso and the El Diviso farm. The farm covers an 18 hectare area comprised of 15 ha of coffee and 2 ha of forest area. The farm carries great diversity of varietals, currently home to Caturra, Colombia, Castillo, Tabi, Pink Bourbon, Red Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, Bourbon Ají, Caturra Chiroso, Geisha, Sidra, Java, Pacamara. Nestor is using fully washed, semi washed and natural methods and uses parabolic dryers as well as raised African beds and some mechanical drying.

80,000 coffee trees grow here at a range of 1700-1850 metres.

Producer Nestor says, “We are the third generation that has been growing coffee. Our grandfather, José Uribe, was the founder of the farm El Diviso. With the work of all the family and constant savings we were able to build the infrastructure to process differentiated coffees; searching for better quality, both in coffee and our lives. After a long trial and error period we managed to standardise different processes, getting a better income in order to plant new varieties that allowed us to have better quality. One of our dreams is to produce specialty coffee that reaches all the world.”

For this natural process coffee, first, the floating process is done in order to select the best cherries only (fully ripe). Anaerobic fermentation then occurs in bags or jars for 70 hours at an average temperature of 17° Celsius. The cherries are then moved to a tank for an oxidation process of 28 hours; reaching a maximum temperature of 42° Celisus. The coffee is then moved to 50kg bags where an anaerobic fermentation of 30 hours takes place (16-20° Celsius)

The coffee is then moved to tanks filled with water at 45° Celsius where leachates from a previous harvest are added. This process lasts 18 hours, where the mix is occasionally stirred.

Drying process: the coffee is dried in a parabolic drying system at a maximum temperature of 32° Celsius. Once it reaches 18% moisture the drying process is interrupted; storing the coffee in dark bags in a dark warehouse for 60 hours. It is then dried in the same place until 11% moisture is reached