El Refugio Geisha, Colombia | Washed

El Refugio belongs to the Agudelo Uribe family since August of 2020. It started as a project to share family time, connect with nature and produce specialty coffee – something that all members of the family are passionate about.

The farm has 7.5 hectares of coffee in exotic varietal like Gesha, Sidra Bourbon and other Ethiopian varieties, the plants are on average 2 years old. The farm is located in the same mountain range as the “Ruiz Volcano”, contributing to nutrient- rich volcanic soils to the farm.

Before being a coffee farm, the use of the land was oriented towards livestock and grass. However, when the farm turned to coffee, the owners have planted a lot of native trees to create shading and developed an agroforestry systems that seek to protect the coffee from the harsh winds and erosive characteristics of the land as well as nurturing wildlife.

These trees also help to fix nitrogen in the soil in order to give more nutrients to the coffee plantation. Additionally, since the trees are all native species, they become a natural habitat and source of food for the native fauna; especially regional birds.

The main harvest (70%) is in the second semester (October-January), and the fly-crop (30%) is in the first semester (March-June)

Processing of the coffee:

All the coffee processed in the farm is fully washed coffee. When the trees grow older there will probably be natural coffees coming from the farms, but the initial harvests have had great results showing the terroir and big potential of a young coffee plants while being processed as fully washed.

The process is being done in an “Ecomill” that is a machine that pulps the coffee and has a fermentation tank right beneath the pulping machine. It has a big plus when it comes to water management, where the water consumption is very low compared to other methods.

Processing steps:

1. Cherries are received in the “Tolva” (reception tank)

2. The cherries are floated and the impurities are removed, as well as the over or under ripe cherries.

3. The coffee is pulped to remove the skin.

4. coffee with the mucilage is fermented for 24hrs Fermentation process . The time can change depending on environmental factors (hotter days require lower fermentation time and reverse)

5. The coffee is then moved to the washing channels and the deteriorated mucilage is removed from the parchment, using channels enables them to also grade the coffee based on density of the beans.

6. The coffee parchment then is moved to parabolic driers until target moisture is reached (10.5%), before being stored in burlap bags ready to be brought to Siruma warehouse for final physical and quality assessment.