Colombia Narino - San Antonio Nilson Luis López Dias

Whole bean coffee. 

After tasting the unique and exciting flavors this coffee had to offer, we went out and bought all of this special micro-lot that we could find.  This wonderful coffee comes to us from Sr. Nilson Luis López Dias' farm, called Finca San Antonio. Sr. López and his family have been active participants in the operation of the 24 acre farm since he inherited it ten years ago from his parents.  Nilson uses his own micro-mill to process harvested cherries, which allows for meticulous care in depulping, fermenting, and drying the coffee. In 2012, Sr. López’s mother was recognized for their family’s efforts with a first place finish in the Cup of Excellence. The result is a big, juicy coffee full of red fruit and citrus.

This special microlot graded high.  It's a rich and lively coffee, with an exciting fruitiness and addictive sweetness.  We taste fruit punch and plum in the cup, and a hint of berries as the cup cools.  

• Origin: Medina Espejo, Buesaco, Nariño, Colombia
• Farmer: Nilson Luis López Dias
• Process: Natural
• Varieties: Caturra, Geisha, and Castillo
• Altitude: 1,980 - 2008 masl
• What we taste: fruit punch, plum, and berries

Brewing Notes

I prepared this as a pour over, two days post-roast, using my standard brew recipe.  I ground 27 grams of coffee, to 390 grams of liquid.  The flow rate here was right on target: a 3:30 total time.  This coffee seemed to like higher temperatures--I increased the temperature of my water by a few degrees (207), and it really helped bring out a bit of punchiness in the coffee.  The heat seemed to actually expose some stone fruit--the peach flavor.  

The coffee is unique in that it has vivid fruit flavors--but not a lot of the acidic punchiness that tend to associate with very fruity (e.g. Ethiopian) coffees.  It has a bit of acidic punch early, but is quickly followed by a bloom of sweet stone fruit (peach) and some of the blackberry.  The flavors are varied and complex--but very distinct and clean.  It had a medium-to-light body which, combined with the unique fruit flavors, made the coffee easy to drink in volume and left me wanting more!

It's juicy--I felt the juiciness on the back of my tongue, especially as the coffee cooled a bit.  In fact, I prefer to let the coffee sit in the carafe for 5 minutes or so before drinking: the full complexity of flavors is most apparent when the coffee has cooled a bit.