Colombia La Cristalina Lactic Honey - Green

$ 10.27

Country: Colombia
Region: Armenia, Quindio
Varietal: Caturra
Farm: Various
Process: Lactic Honey
Altitude: 1,350 - 1,400 MASL
Cupping Notes: Black Tea, Peach, Dark Chocolate, Nougat
Recommended Roast:City to Full City+
Good For: Auto Drip, Full Immersion, Espresso

Description: This coffee was grown by Hernando Arcila at the La Cristalina farm. The coffee was exposed to a dry aerobic fermentation for 24 hours then placed inside Grainpro bags for 90 hours maintaining a temperature below 22C. In this anaerobic environment, the bacteria feed on the carbohydrates and sugars found in the mucilage. This leads to a higher concentration of lactic acid. Finally, the coffee was pulped and placed on raised beds at a temperature below 35C until ideal moisture content was achieved.

This microlot is 100% Caturra. This variety originated in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It is a natural mutation of Red Bourbon. Caturra produces more coffee and is more resistant to plant diseases than Bourbon.

Gogo Does La Cristalina

I am admittedly a rookie roaster, however, armed with my Ikawa I am coming up with some nice roast. That said, I roast my beans 90g at a time with different profiles to see what I can get out of the bean and La Cristalina followed suit.

My first roast was 8 minutes and it didn't really make me that happy. The bean seemed a little on the wet side on roasting judging by the moisture in my roaster during the dry stage. I had a nice brown at the 5-minute mark and when done I ended with a 3/5 on the darkness scale. The tasting notes were sharper and a bit toward the bitter side. It was just an okay, cupper, 5.5 out of 10.

For the second batch of roast, I went deep and roasted for 9.30 minutes and changed my roasting profile to give me a bit more time in the dry/brown stage with a much longer development time. This gave me a 4 out of 5 darkness. I was surprised at what a difference this made, now I had a smooth, very 'coffee' cupper. Suddenly my rating went up to 8/10 and I was drinking a happy cupper. Hints of chocolate, maybe some hazelnut, perhaps chocolate chip cookie. This is a good overall bean when roasted correctly so on my Gogo Bean scale I give it an overall 7.5 to 8 out of 10.

Kind regards,
Gogo