Colombia - Rodrigo Sanchez - Blueberry Co-Ferment - 8oz

Our friend Rodrigo Sanchez returns with his beloved blueberry co-ferment, and we're absolutely buzzing about it! Blending caturra and bourbon varieties with an innovative blueberry co-fermentation process, this coffee has evolved to deliver an explosion of fresh blueberries up front and cooling into the familiar blueberry candy flavors this coffee is known for! What started as a love-at-first-sip has only gotten better with each passing harvest. This is what happens when passion meets processing prowess. Explore all the juicy details below!

We Taste: Blueberry Cobbler, Luxardo Cherry, Key Lime

Country: Colombia
Region: Huila
Farm: Finca Monteblanco
Producer: Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia
Process: Blueberry Co-fermented Washed
Variety: Caturra, Bourbon
Elevation: 1730 meters

Process Info: 

This Blueberry Co-fermented Washed process begins with the creation of the fermentation culture that will be used. First, a mother culture was created containing microorganisms like lactobacillus and saccharomyces cerevisiae which were derived from Rodrigo’s Purple Caturra coffee cherries. 80 liters of this culture is separated to be fed with sugar, molasses, and concentrated blueberry juice. The ingredient mixture contributes flavor to the culture, while the sweetener energizes the fermentation and brings the culture’s sugar content to a level that matches the degrees Brix of the coffee that will be processed. This initial fermentation of the mother culture takes 190 hours to reach the appropriate degrees Brix and pH value for coffee processing. Before being processed with the fermented culture, coffee cherries are measured for sugar content as soon as they reach the mill at Monteblanco. Cherries are then floated to remove impurities before being pulped and deposited into a 200 liter sealed tank. The 80 liter culture that was previously fermented with the fruits is added to the sealed tank, and the pulped coffee is fermented for 150 hours. During this process, the team keeps
measurements to ensure that the environment doesn’t fall below 6 degrees Brix, or below a pH of 4. The coffee is then moved to the drying area, where it is dried for 2–3 days in direct sunlight and then for 15–18 days under shaded canopies until it reaches 10–11% humidity.

Farm info:

Finca Monteblanco, located high along the winding mountain roads of Vereda La Tocora in the San Adolfo municipality above Pitalito, is a family farm managed by Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia in the tradition of coffee cultivation that began with his grandfather.
Monteblanco’s 18 hectares sit on the crest of a hill, with the wet mill and drying facilities at the top of the farm and slopes of coffee planted below. In 2002 Rodrigo participated in a local program teaching local children of coffee producers to cup. Before that, he and his family had never considered coffee in terms of cup profile. By learning to differentiate profiles, he and his father and grandfather were able to make the connections between the farming techniques they applied and coffee’s resulting attributes in the cup. At this time, Rodrigo also began to learn about cupping competitions that evaluate the best lots from farms in a region. He noticed that farms would win one year and then never again, so he decided to investigate how to produce quality coffee consistently. This led him to explore the trees planted on Monteblanco, where he discovered various varieties his grandfather had planted in the 1980’s. One of these varieties is Purple Caturra, a type of Caturra whose cherries ripen to a deep purple color. Rodrigo is proud that he, his wife Claudia Samboni, farm manager Don Gerardo, and the
team that works in the fields and at the mill have reached the goal of achieving consistent quality. Finca Monteblanco produces microlots with each harvest that serve as competition coffees around the world, but the farm also consistently produces containers of delicious

coffees that appear year-round on café menus and retail shelves. By applying an ethic of
rigorous monitoring, planning, and management at each stage of production and
processing, all coffees from Monteblanco showcase their full potential.