Purple Caturra
Pina Colada Washed
Finca Monteblanco

Tastes Like: Pineapple, Mint, Citrus

Origin: Finca Monteblanco, Huila, Colombia

Variety: Purple Caturra

Producer: Rodrigo Sanchez

Elevation: 1730 MASL

Process:  Washed Co-Fermentation with Fruits and Yeasts

Farm and Producer

Rodrigo Sánchez Valencia manages Finca Monteblanco in Vereda La Tocora, near San Adolfo, Huila. The 18-hectare family farm occupies a hilltop, with its wet mill and drying areas above the planted slopes. Rodrigo works with Claudia Samboni, farm manager Don Gerardo and the farm team; learning to cup in 2002 helped him connect cultivation and processing choices with coffee quality.

Variety

Purple Caturra is the name used at Monteblanco for a Caturra selection whose cherries mature to a deep purple color. Caturra itself is a compact mutation of Bourbon. Rodrigo selected this material for its high cherry sugar content and its suitability for the farm’s fermentation experiments.

Processing

For this process caturra purpura was chosen for its versatility in the preparation of any process, thanks to its higher concentration of Brix degrees, added to this has a large sweetness material that allows the microorganisms have an optimal area to work, where some of them are extracted as lactobacillus and saccharomyses cerevisiae, then begin to cultivate separately before incorporating them into the coffee, giving way to a large scale where you get to produce a significant volume.

Once these microorganisms have been separated, a part of them is removed to another new culture, the fruit that we as producers want to induce in the coffee is added to give that flavor at the end, that is to say, to separate a mass of 80 liters for a can of 200 liters of that mother culture to which we have already added fruit and sweetened, with this it is taken to Brix degrees equal to the degrees that the coffee already has; In order for this mother culture to reach its optimum state it takes 8 days, which is summarized in 190 hours of fermentation for the culture to process together with the fruit until it obtains the Ph and the Brix degrees adequate to enter the coffee.

In the case of this process as Piña Colada, we separate the microorganisms and add Pineapple, Coconut Dehydrated and Liquor, then we start fermenting and feeding the mother culture with some energizing base, such as molasses, sugar or panela, providing the energy for the microorganisms to work, little by little we feed it with fruit and candy until we achieve the preparation of the culture that is already fermented and with an excellent load of microorganisms.

Subsequently the coffee that is collected is taken, Brix degrees are measured as soon as the lot arrives at the reception site such as the hopper or place of floating, 100 grains are taken from the coffee mass to know the Brix degrees in which they are found, we float and eliminate impurities and then proceed to pulp and deposit inside the 200 liter plastic tanks completely sealed, pour the coffee and apply the 80 liters of the solution that is already prepared and comes with the fruit or flavor that we want the product to taste like.

The coffee is incorporated and placed to ferment for 150 hours more, we take this until the Brix degrees do not fall below 6 and the pH does not fall below 4, we have discovered this point of balance for the coffee and to be able to highlight the notes of the fruit in this case pineapple, we know that we do not want it to be an invasive flavor so as not to alter or contaminate the coffee flavor but rather to bring the notes of the fruits that we are inducing and fermenting, without forgetting that the main base for the preparation is coffee.