Colombia Finca El Placer

The Farm & Its Owner

This very special lot of Pink Bourbon Spice Up is produced on Finca El Placer, by Sebastian Ramirez, a 4th generation coffee producer who has been running his family estate for over a decade.

El Placer means ” The Pleasure”, and the farm is located in the heart of El Eje Cafetero (the coffee zone) in Calarca, Quindio at 1,744 masl. At El Placer, avoiding herbicides and cutting weeds every two months is part of a sustainable approach to farming. They prioritise soil health, which results in healthy plants and contributes to great flavour profiles too. Sebastian has access to a well-equipped microbiology laboratory, crucial for the El Placer team in developing innovative and exotic coffees.

Sebastian uses natural, washed, and honey processes, and all the varieties undergo carbonic maceration. Most of the coffee is processed naturally or via honey, to minimize water consumption. In his quest to maximise the flavour potential of every variety, Sebastian is taking a step forward by adding the “musto” from cherries to the coffee during fermentation.

Harvesting & Selection

The first step of processing is the three-step hand selection:

1. 95% of ripe and 5% of semi-ripe cherries are selected, all by hand.
2. The cherries are submerged in water tanks and the floaters are removed from the surface.
3. Lastly, the cherries without any visible defects are sorted to guarantee only the best quality ones will undertake the fermentation processes.

The Special Process Used for this Lot

For the lots processed using this method, coffee is fermented twice anaerobically.

First, the selected cherries are sealed inside 200L plastic cans for 100hrs at a constant temperature of 18 ° C. These cans are filled with water and depleted of oxygen by injecting CO2, a process called carbonic maceration. This initial stage can take up to one hundred hours.

Secondly, the beans are semi-pulped using the pulped natural or honey process in which the outer layer of the cherry is removed, leaving some of the mucilage (fruit pulp) on the beans.

Thirdly, the beans then go back to the tanks where they are inoculated with their own “mussto” (the juice obtained from the initial fermentation) and the internal environment is injected with CO2 to continue with the anaerobic process called culturing. Sebastian uses this technique to maximize the flavour profile. This second stage of anaerobic fermentation lasts about 72 hours. Throughout the fermentation, the PH levels and temperature are carefully monitored.

Lastly, the coffee is dried on eldas (patios) for up to 30 days or until they reach the desired moisture level of between 10-12%.

Dried cherries are milled and manually sorted in jute bags to stabilize for a week before being sent to the dry mill.