In My Mug Episode 337

I don’t know how good your memory is but we had a coffee a couple of years ago called Colombia Huila Pitalito Oporapa. It was from a mix of eleven producers; eleven producers who had been picked out, on a cupping table, as people doing amazing things with coffee. Since then we have gone on to develop and create relationships with two of these eleven, and Edier is the third.

Edier Perdomo owns a farm called Buena Vista in Pitalito, which is in the Huila department of Colombia. Edier is 34 years old and has worked with coffee his whole life, but he has only been focusing on quality for the last two years. He grows the Caturra varietal on the farm, which is at an altitude of 1,700 metres above sea level.

Edier is a little different, though. He is from a family of coffee growers, but he's one of the new generation trying different things and experimenting. His family own the farm next door to his, and they take a more traditional approach. They are planting rust-resistant varietals like Colombia and Sarchimor, for instance, while Edier perseveres with the vulnerable Caturra because he knows it has a superior cup profile with his set of growing circumstances.

He also does something different at the processing stage. For his fermentation process, Edier fills big blue tanks with 50% wet parchment (just out of the depulper) and then shuts them. He waits for 24 hours before opening the tank again, and then he proceeds with washing the coffee normally. This is an interesting way of fermenting, and it seems to be working really well for him.

So we have been running an experiment with him to cup and score each of his day's lots. First he has to deliver the lots at the right moisture content to the warehouse. It's not uncommon for lots to be rejected, but Edier rarely gets anything turned away and is the best at this in the Pitalito warehouse. We approve anything scoring over 86; anything below 86 is rejected, put into a bulk lot (a Pitalito blend) and sold on. So far we have seen that almost all his coffee has been approved with high scores: so much so that we created an 86-89 lot, which is here. There were a couple of special micro lots that scored over 89, which we will be selling for a little more (because we paid more for them), but this is the most versatile of them all.

In the cup expect a lovely green-apple acidity mixed with a powerful caramel that gives it amazing balance and mouthfeel. A great espresso.

To see photos of Buena Vista take a look here.

• Country: Colombia
• Department: Huila
• Town: Pitalito
• Producer: Edier Perdomo
• Farm: Finca Buena Vista
• Altitude: 1,700 m.a.s.l.
• Processing: Fully Washed using anaerobic style dry fermentation
• Varietal: Caturra