Purple Caturra
Coconut Lemonade Natural
Monteblanco

Tastes Like: Tropical, Coconut, Lemonade

Origin: Finca Monteblanco, Huila, Colombia

Variety: Purple Caturra

Producer: Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia

Elevation: 1730 masl

Process:  Coconut Lemonade Co-fermented Natural

Farm and Producer

Rodrigo Sánchez Valencia manages Finca Monteblanco in Vereda La Tocora, near San Adolfo, Huila. The 18-hectare farm occupies a hilltop, with its wet mill and drying facilities above the planted slopes. Coffee cultivation in his family began with his grandfather.

Learning to cup in 2002 helped Rodrigo connect growing and processing decisions with coffee quality. He works with Claudia Samboni, farm manager Don Gerardo, and the farm team to manage harvesting and prepare separate lots. Coffee is milled for export at Aromas del Sur in Pitalito.

Variety

Purple Caturra is Monteblanco’s name for a Caturra selection with cherries that mature to a deep purple color. Rodrigo identified it among older plantings on the family farm and uses its high cherry sugar content in several fermentation preparations. Caturra is a compact mutation of Bourbon.

Processing

This Coconut Lemonade Co-fermented Natural 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, citrus fruits, and coconut. The fruit 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 mother culture and fruit takes 190 hours to reach the appropriate degrees Brix and pH value for coffee processing.

Before being processed with the fruit-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 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 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.