Candy Cola (2019) – Caturra by Drigelio Becerra in Huila, Colombia

Backstory

This coffee is fascinating to us, especially as something from Huila. Back in November, we met with and got to know the producers we’ve bought from this past year in Nariño, but since it was off-season, and Huila was certainly in season at that time, we decided then it was a great time to expand our offering and bring home some delights. This lot is from Drigelio Becerra, and his farm called El Dorado is home to a bunch of lovely Caturra. It’s getting more and more challenging to find Caturra in Colombia, with the majority of people opting for more resilient hybrid strains (which is necessary!). Drigelio has good altitude though, at 1 750 meters above sea level, so that should make things just a little bit easier to grow for this cultivar.

After the coffee is picked, it sits in a small tank for around 35 hours without water, and is then rinsed and dried on raised beds for 15 days – This lot, in particular, was finished drying in October. When we were looking at where this coffee is grown, it occurred to me that this is the first time I’ve brought in anything from Isnos – The more ‘famous’ regions of San Agustine and Acevedo to the north of Huila are more common to find. Isnos is located on the road to Popayan from Pitalito and was declared a site of Cultural and Historical Heritage by UNESCO in 1995, It’s just north of the Magdalena river as it winds into Cauca. The flavour of this coffee is particularly strange (we love it). With heavy sweetness and herbal flavours of liquorice and cola, this flavour profile is making us want to go see Drigelio as soon as we can and we hope you enjoy it too! ,II