Mandela
XO Natural
La Esperanza, Cafe Granja La Esperanza

Tastes Like: Maraschino, Tropical, Dried Fruits

Origin: La Esperanza, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Variety: Mandela

Producer: Rigoberto and Luis Eduardo Herrera

Elevation: 1,430–1,760 masl

Process:  XO Natural

About the Cup

A fruit-saturated natural profile led by maraschino cherry, tropical fruit, and dried fruit sweetness. The cup carries a liqueur-like depth with creamy texture, structured acidity, and a lingering finish shaped by Mandela’s expressive character and Café Granja La Esperanza’s controlled XO Natural process.

About Finca La Esperanza, Cafe Granja La Esperanza

Café Granja La Esperanza is the Herrera family’s specialty coffee project in Valle del Cauca, Colombia, led by brothers Rigoberto and Luis Eduardo Herrera. The family’s coffee history began at Potosí in 1945, when Juan Antonio Herrera and Blanca Ligia Correa built on existing Typica plantings and introduced Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourbon, and Caturra. In the late 1990s, Rigoberto and Luis began expanding the operation and sharpening its focus on specialty varieties, controlled processing, and high-end microlot production.

La Esperanza is one of Café Granja La Esperanza’s key farms, planted across multiple lots in a humid mountain environment. The farm is part of a broader production system known for careful variety selection, precise fermentation, and controlled drying, allowing lots like this Mandela XO Natural to show concentrated fruit, liqueur-like sweetness, and a defined cup structure.

About Mandela

Mandela is a Café Granja La Esperanza cultivar developed through multi-stage breeding involving Caturra, Timor Hybrid, and Ethiopian landrace material. It was selected with both cup quality and agronomic resilience in mind, and in specialty coffee it is often associated with expressive fruit, layered sweetness, and aromatic intensity. In this lot, Mandela provides the structure needed for the XO Natural process to read as dense and fruit-forward while still retaining clarity and acidity.

About Processing

XO Natural is Café Granja La Esperanza’s natural-style process designed to build ripe fruit intensity, sweetness, and liqueur-like aromatics through controlled fermentation and staged drying. For this lot, ripe cherries are selected and floated, Brix levels are measured, and the cherries undergo a 70-hour fermentation in GrainPro bags with periodic rotation to encourage even fermentation.

Drying begins in a controlled mechanical system for three days at 38–40°C, followed by 12–15 days on raised beds and a climate-controlled resting period. This approach can amplify tropical fruit, dried fruit sweetness, and maraschino-like aromatics while helping preserve acidity, texture, and cup definition.