Colombia - Mayelo Toro's Rosado

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter

Lightest Influence: Fast roasting and shorter development to maximise brightness. This roast style requires rest to open up, but it's worth it

Best Rested: 3-4 weeks

Filter: 60g/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: Ripe berry aromatics - blackberry & raspberry alongside some fruity caramels like muscovado. In the cup raspberry & blackcurrant cordial; lime curd, honey; red grape. As it cools the currant notes become more pronounced; alongside an effervescent sweetness like pink lemonade.

Traceability

The Story

Mayelo Julian Toro Alvarez has been growing coffee at Finca El Mirador for twenty years, with the farm taking its name from the stunning mountain views that stretch across Pitalito. One of the best plots on the land - Villa Andrea - is named after his daughter, a sweet touch that speaks to the personal connection he has with his coffee.

About five years ago, Mayelo made the shift from delivering to the local Café Andino cooperative to working with Caravela, where he became part of their PECA programme—a producer education initiative that provides hands-on technical assistance to farmers. The difference shows in the cup. He's recently upgraded his infrastructure with new processing equipment that allows him to move cherries directly from his plots to post-harvest processing, keeping everything tight and controlled.

Rosado (more commonly known with the misnomer of "Pink Bourbon" - aka Bourbon Rosado) has a fascinating origin story. Despite the old name suggesting a Bourbon lineage, genetic testing by Cafe Imports in 2017 and 2023 confirmed that this variety is actually an Ethiopian landrace with no relation to Bourbon whatsoever.
The name originated from a Colombian farmer who discovered a plant with uniquely salmon-orange and pink-tinged cherries growing amongst his Bourbon trees, leading him to assume it was a hybrid between his Red and Yellow Bourbon varieties.

How an Ethiopian landrace ended up in Colombian farms remains a mystery, though theories suggest it may have been brought as parent stock for hybrid development or possibly misidentified as Gesha when originally introduced. Rosado isn't unique in this regard—other Ethiopian landrace varieties like Chiroso and Ají have also "been discovered" in Colombian cultivation. These Ethiopian landraces represent part of an estimated 6,000 to 15,000 unique coffee varieties that evolved naturally in Ethiopia's forests, offering crucial genetic diversity that differs dramatically from the narrow Typica and Bourbon lineages that form the foundation of most global coffee production.