COLOMBIA — LA PALMA & EL TUCÁN
rum walnut ∙ plums ∙ milk chocolate sweetness
The 83 years old Lilia Rosas started cultivating coffee 40 years ago on her own farm called Buenavista. Since 2014 she sells the whole harvest to the Colombian processing specialist La Palma & El Tucán who do the processing and achieve an exciting yet unusual taste from the blend of Typica, Caturra, Castillo and Colombia varieties.
L
ilia Rosas is the second coffee in our product range supplied by La Palma & El Tucán this year. It is a company embracing and supporting the local growers, always focusing on high-end quality. Using special drying and processing techniques La Palma manages to bring out truly exceptional flavours in coffees. It was evident that we would include their coffee in our product range again this year. After tasting a great number of their coffees, we selected Siervo Moreno and Lilia Rosas. La Palma & El Tucán is without doubt an exciting project in the quality-oriented specialty coffee world. The Colombian company in the Andes approach the world of coffee with an innovative, fresh mind. They not only place special emphasis on the selection and processing of the beans, but they have also established a unique business model. They cooperate closely with more than 200 local growers who are all dedicated to produce high quality coffee. Sustainability is a popular buzzword in the world of specialty coffee, but this concept is taken really seriously at La Palma: the growers are paid over 50% more than the country´s price average, they grow coffee trees in nurseries and later donate them to the local farmers. They even bear the transportation costs of the harvest.
La Palma provides an on-going training for their partners so that they can improve the quality of the coffee. The beans are collected by pickers trained in quality harvesting methods. The first-class coffee beans are then transported to the state-of-the-art wet mill of La Palma & El Tucán, where they are processed with truly revolutionary methods. Each batch is carefully tested and undergo a rigorous quality control procedure. The coffee is cupped by highly trained technicians in the in-house laboratory. There is a meticulous dataanalysis reviewing the journey of the coffee beans from the farm to the lab. This protocol helps the experts analyze the coffee to a much greater degree than it would be possible with a simple cupping, and at the same time the collected data helps to understand how picking and processing methods influence the cup. The 83-year-old Lilia Rosas is one of the oldest coffee growers working with La Palma. She inherited the 4-hectare farm called Buenavista 40 years ago, where her family used to grow coffee, mango and citrus fruit. Doña Lilia and her husband have seven children, but unfortunately none of them is interested in coffee growing, leaving the management of the farm to their elderly parents. Their farm joined the program called Neighbors & Crops in 2014.
This move has not only improved the quality of their coffee, but they also receive some help with harvest, which used to present real logistic difficulties for the elderly couple. Buenavista lies at the altitude of 1300 metres. Several varieties are grown on the farm, and Lilia is a blend of Typica, Caturra, Castillo, Colombia and Bourbon varieties. Unlike in the traditional honey processing method, the cherries are pre-fermented for a few hours before hulling. The pulp remains on the beans, then they are loaded onto drying patios and are dried for 15 days. This coffee produced by Lilia Rosas was harvested in May, 2015.
... To achieve the best taste experience possible use soft water and freshly ground coffee. Let it rest for a week after roasting but consume it within one month. Enjoy! the Casino Mocca team
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photo by the La Palma & El Tucán
Lilia Rosas