El Bolsillo Farm coffee is a pleasant, sweet, slightly fruity coffee for everyday sipping.
The farm / washing station:
Guillermo Munoz, a coffee grower from Ortega in Tolima, is 55 years old and owns the El Bolsillo farm, located in the Alto Guayabos. The farm covers an area of 1 hectare, of which 0.95 hectares is dedicated to coffee cultivation at an altitude of 1 860 metres. It grows Castillo coffee, which has approximately 5 000 trees aged 4-5 years. He is actually from Caldas and came to Tolima when he was 22 years old to work as a picker on the farms. Eventually he got a job working for Aristubulo Rayo (another Agrario member) where he worked for 10 years, saving money and learning how to farm so that he could buy his own small farm and 1 hectare of land from Don Aristubulo. In recent years he has been focusing on specialty coffee to increase the value of his product, and also roasts and sells coffee locally.
Siruma, Falcon’s partners for the export of choice coffee in Colombia, have invested in this community and their agronomist Pilar has been organising coffee processing workshops for the group and organising the structure of the association. This has proven to be their real need in taking baseline data. Cafe Agrario started by having to supply coffee to a local trader because they did not have the capacity or organisation to supply Siruma. With Siruma’s help, they are able to sell directly to them and with all the agronomic support, they are also achieving higher premiums for quality.
Variety:
Castillo is the most common coffee variety grown in Colombia. It is a hybrid of the Caturra and Timor Hybrid varieties and was bred by the National Coffee Research Centre (Cenicafé) for its resistance to leaf rust. It was released into production in 2005 and named after the researcher Jamie Castillo. It is a “dwarf” tree that can be planted at high densities, resulting in high yields. However, some specialty coffee experts consider it inferior to other varieties because it shares a genetic heritage with robusta beans, as Timor is a natural hybrid of Arabica and Robusta. Castillo, which is popular for its compact structure and high yield, has gradually replaced Typica and Bourbon varieties in the country and has become the most cultivated coffee in Colombia.
Caturra is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety. It was discovered on a plantation in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil sometime between 1915 and 1918. Caturra has a mutation in one gene that causes the plant to grow smaller (called dwarf/compact). After the discovery of Caturra, selection was carried out at the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) in Brazil from 1937. The breeders were interested in the small size of the variety, which allows the plants to be placed closer together, and in its closely spaced secondary branches, which allow more fruit to be produced in the same space. For decades it was one of the most economically important coffees in Central America, so much so that it was often used (and sometimes still is) as a ‘benchmark’ against which new varieties are tested. The only disadvantage of this variety is that it is susceptible to disease, especially coffee leaf rust. It is similar to Bourbon in sweetness, balanced and slightly citrusy.
Colombia, also known as Variedad Colombia, was refined through five generations of breeding cycles and was finally perfected and launched by Cenicafé in 1983. The crossbreeding process that resulted in the Colombia variety began with the crossing of the Caturra and Timor hybrid varieties, which are resistant to coffee leaf rust and which also have a high yield. Since this variety was developed before the first appearance of coffee leaf rust in Colombia, it is sometimes considered the variety that saved the Colombian coffee industry. When tasting this coffee, caramel, chocolate and hints of cherries emerge. It is sweet, bright and full-bodied.
Processing:
The coffee is fully washed and the cherries are carefully sorted to ensure that only perfectly ripe cherries are used. Guillermo harvests only fully ripe cherries. The picking cycle takes place every 20 days. After picking, the cherries are washed and cleaned and then left to ferment for 12 hours, usually overnight in sacks. The coffee is then pulped and fermented dry in a tank for 36 hours.
The drying process uses a parabolic solar dryer, where an ideal 3cm layer of coffee is maintained to ensure even and slow drying for approximately 12 days.
Our baristas notes:
Colombia El Bolsillo, is a very pleasant sweet filter with a full, slightly spicy body. The body shows sweetness of apples, dates and a hint of autumn spices. There is a very pleasant taste of lighter black tea on the finish. The coffee has low acidity, medium body and higher sweetness. Compared to other washed coffees, we would like to point out here that it flows more slowly. We ground it like the Ethiopia at 26 clicks per comandante.
Recommended recipe for V60:
94 °C water
300ml water
20g coffee
780 micron grind (26 clicks per comandante)
0:00 40ml water
0:35 100 ml water
1:10 80ml water
1:50 80 ml water
Total time around 3 minutes.
