Colombia - El Jaragual Caturra [25/26]

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter

Lightest Influence: Right on the edge of moving from lightest to "light" - we're giving this a smidge more of a nudge as it's tasting very fresh. We may increment a touch lighter as the green continues to open up. Very clean, and roasting like a classic washed coffee as opposed to the more delicate nature of something heavily processed.

Best Rested: 3-4 weeks

Filter: 62g/L, 96°C when fresh but when well rested you can go down to 93-94°C

Espresso: 18g/48g/23s-26 - turbo-esq shots. 

We’re tasting: Gooseberry and elderflower aromatics, in the cup it's honey mango, blood orange and lemon verbena, alongside white grape juice. As it cools becoming more complex with a finish that reminds us of pomelo, raspberry, and galaxy hops

Traceability

The Story

Finca El Jaragual

Finca El Jaragual sits at 1500 MASL in the Amalfi municipality of Antioquia, Colombia. This region is nestled in the northern section of the central spine of the Colombian Andes mountain range and is ideal for growing high quality coffee. The farm is named after Jaragua grass - an African wild-grass that has become naturalised to Colombia, frequently grown for feedstock and fodder, drought resistant and hardy.

Originally a 150-hectare plot, the farm was briefly split as Jonny’s cousins acquired 90 HA about a decade ago.  The remaining 60 HA were purchased by Jonny and his brother about 5 years back, in 2019 - with the work between now and then converting part of the farm back to coffee production and waiting eagerly for the first harvest. 

The majority of El Jaragual is planted with forestry, thanks to Jonny’s cousin's experience as a forestry engineer. A mixture of pine forest plantations being grown for sustainable timber, alongside protected plots of native forest.

Jonny and Jorge are growing 7 varieties at El Jaragual, under plantain shade trees - from the more classic Castillo/Colombia to Rosado & Typica Mejorado. They are planting new cultivars at the moment, such as Ombligon, Sidra, and Laurina.

The processing at El Jaragual has been done with a deft touch - extended ferments, with yeast inoculation, and some thermal control (hot water washes, cold water crashes) to modulate the fermentation rate and green porosity, but without any trace of funk or boozy character.

Overall, an increased amount of technical intervention in the processing, but not on the level of bioreactors and lab plants - a really nice bridge between the classic style of processing and the new, something we can really get full throttle behind in supporting. 

We're convinced El Jaragual is going to be a world renowned farm - having been one of the first roasters to showcase their work, we've been stoked to see some serious heavy hitters bring this coffee on.