Origin: Urrao, Antioquia, Colombia

Producer: Juan Danilo Florez

Farm: Finca Las Mañanitas

Process: Washed

Varieties: Chiroso

Elevation: 2010masl

Importer: The Coffee Quest

Roast: Light

Notes: Lemon, Raspberry, Spiced Pear

Juan Danilo Florez, Finca Las Mañanitas

During our trip to Colombia last year we got the opportunity to meet up with Stephen from Coffee Quest. Stephen lives and works out of Colombia and has a huge passion for special high-quality coffees and processes. At Coffee Quest they work directly with producers, and have their own mill in Antioquia to have further control over the quality the export!

During my time with Coffee Quest we took a quick rip from Medellín to Urrao, the home of one of the finest varietals, Chiroso! When done correctly, Chiroso is an incredibly diverse coffee that shows so nicely as a filtered coffee. Urrao is an absolutely beautiful town, surrounded by lush green rolling hills filled with roaming horses and gorgeous scenery, it was almost surreal. 

Though we didn't get to visit Juan Danilo's farm, Finca Las Mañanitas, we got to take a good look at other producers in the region, and learn how they grow and process their Chiroso. It's such a unique region as majority of producers are growing mostly Chiroso, where the varietal originated, a supposed close natural mutation of an Ethiopian Landrace varietal.

Juan Danilo is a second generation coffee grower, growing coffee on 4 hectares of his 14 hectare farm, where he also has dairy cattle and lime trees. His family used to grow tomato and lulo but the heavy pesticide they require was taking a toll on his family's health, so they made the change to growing coffee and have not looked back!

Located at a soaring 2010 masl, an altitude that more a complex coffee like Chiroso grow very well at. The warm days and cool nights slow down the maturation of the coffee cherry, leading to more complexity and concentrated sweetness. 

Juan uses the "cochadas" approach to processing his coffee. He picks ripe cherry daily, allows it to sit for a day in the hopper before depulping, while picking the next days cherry. He'll then de-pulp the cherry after a day of primary fermentation, and put the next batch of cherry in the hopper to sit until the next day. This will go on for about a week, allowing for 2-6 days of total fermentation between all the batches.

This process, which we've seen across Colombia and Honduras, allows for a unique style of fermentation, where the fresh coffee being added to the slurry cools down the mass, slowing down and controlling the fermentation of the de-pulped coffee.

The coffee is then washed all together before being put into a parabolic dryer for 8-10 days, depending on the weather.

This extra care taken during the fermentation process really makes this coffee sing. a super unique lemon & raspberry acidity, with a spiced pear sweetness, and a milk tea like body that ties everything together so nicely.

We love this coffee as a pour-over, or an aeropress. Definitely doable as an espresso though some subtlety might be lost.