Passion fruit, mango, pineapple, Papaya
Finca Monteblanco, located high along the winding mountain roads of Vereda La Tocora in the San Adolfo municipality above Pitalito, is a family farm managed by Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia in the tradition of coffee cultivation that began with his grandfather. Monteblanco’s 18 hectares sit on the crest of a hill, with the wetmill and drying facilities at the top and slopes of coffee planted below.
In 2002, Rodrigo participated in a local program teaching children of coffee producers to cup. Before that, he and his family had never considered coffee in terms of cup profile. By learning to differentiate profiles, he, his father, and grandfather were able to make the connections between the farming techniques they applied and coffee’s attributes in the cup. At this time, Rodrigo also began to learn about cupping competitions that evaluate the best lots from farms in a region. He noticed that farms would win one year and then never again, so he decided to investigate how to produce quality coffee consistently. In 2017, Rodrigo and his team at Aromas del Sur—the company built to unify all the farms he owns and manages: La Loma, El Progreso, and Monteblanco—constructed a cupping lab on La Loma to facilitate sample roasting, crop evaluation, and sourcing at origin. The lab overlooks the farm and the valley of Pitalito, with coffee trees and other crops dotting the rolling landscape.
Processing
This Passion Fruit Washed process begins with the creation of the fermentation culture that will be used. First, a mother culture was created containing microorganisms like lactobacillus and saccharomyces cerevisiae. 80 liters of this culture is separated to be fed with passion fruit, cholupa fruit, and a sweetener like panela or molasses. The cholupa and passion fruit contribute flavor to the culture, while the sweetener energizes the fermentation and brings the culture’s sugar content to a level that matches the degrees Brix of the coffee that will be processed. This initial fermentation of mother culture and fruit takes 190 hours to reach the appropriate degrees Brix and pH value for coffee processing.
Spec
- Origin: Colombia
- Region: Huila
- Producer: Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia
- Farm: Finca Monteblanco
- Altitude: 1730m
- Cultivar: Purple Caturra
- Processing: Passion Fruit Washed
- Sourcing: Pebble Coffee