Colombia - Elizabeth González

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter

Light Roaster Influence: We're pushing this one a smidge harder - finding some of the classic Castillo variety characteristics need to be structured with the more caramelised flavours that a bit of extra time and temp in the Loring bring.

Best Rested: 2-3 weeks

Filter: 60g/L & 97°C, with rest we like to move down to 95°C

Espresso: Classic style 18g/42g+ 28-32s

We’re tasting: Baked apple, brown sugar aromatics with a sweet & clean cup. Gooseberry, green apple & brown sugar lead a very drinkable cup with great balance. Some classic Castillo variety herbals in the finish; but integrated with the cup profile - much like lemon thyme.

Traceability

The Story

For the last two years, we've booked LaREB lots that arrive with the summer container - those very same lots that will be in the process of harvesting and milling now. But we found ourselves looking at the buying calendar and seeing some gaps open up, between a jam-packed summer (we may have got excited and overbooked...) and the end of the winter/spring seasons, and sure enough there was some coffee left arriving from Scenery pals LaREB. Having felt a bit funk heavy at times, we loved how this lot stood out as sweet, clean and the sort of thing you could absolute pound mugs of batch from - a little bit of extra acidity and complexity from the longer processing, but underneath, clean sweet high altitude Castillo as is the classic tradition.

Much like we selected this coffee blind from the intrinsic cup qualities - without knowing anything of the extrinsic story behind it - so too is Elizabeth González a new participant in the CDNT/LaREB project.

Catching up with Herbert before release, we'll quote his words as he said them:
"[Elizabeth] is a new producer in CDNT. This lot was a surprise, completely unexpected. Not normal for an everyday producer to come over with a coffee that good. [Her] coffee is textbook CDNT, though"

We agree with Herbert - clean, sweet, and indeed without funk/process character that oft drives some of the other parts of our offer. Our first time purchasing from Elizabeth, but we hope for sure not the last.

LaREB:

LaREB- La Real Expedición Botánica - are a radical producer-owned export co-operative/movement. Their goal is to develop de-colonised supply chains and operate outside the typical multinational pathways of coffee, and it’s a mission that’s really resonated with us. By pooling together collective knowledge, financing, quality, export and import, LaReb members are able to define their own terms of engagement. It’s genuinely so refreshing to work with Herbert and the team, and we know we’ll only to continue to grow our purchasing relationship over the years.

CDNT emerged from eight producers in northern Tolima who chose to build their own response to falling incomes and youth migration from coffee farming. Using Herbert Peñaloza's 575 farm as their base, they've established a practical blueprint for producer-driven change: a shared quality lab, new variety trials, and an agroforestry system for soil improvement. Processing happens independently on each farm, with members directing their own production while pooling resources and expertise.