Opus. Colombia, Robert Montanchez, pink borbon, WSHD


 

The Opus, Exotic & Complex

Another nod to the Scandinavian style of roasting, the Opus is expertly light. Usually floral forward, you can expect a delicate and bright crisp cup. Mostly staying with washed African coffees, our roasting process for this profile shows off clarity of flavours.

  • body 35% 35%
  • sweetness 40% 40%
  • acidity 25% 25%

The Opus right now & origin details

Unfortunately our last lot from the Monkaaba group – a producer led group fostering farmers who want more control over the sale of their coffees. This is an important part of the specialty coffee world where producers are taking more control over what happens to their coffees, after picking, after processing, and in cases like this the sale of their lots. The result is essentially gaining more money for their lots by being able to see their coffees go through more of the supply chain.

 

Notes: cane sugare, grapefruit, orange blossom

Country: Colombia, Los Guadales, Simon Bolivar, San Agustin

Producer / Mill / Group: Robert Montanchez, Monkaaba group

Elevation & farm/plot size: 1750m / 6ha (4ha with coffee)

Process: Washed.

Variety: pink borbon

Harvested: 2022 fall

Importer: Brendan @ Semilla

Cherries are collected every 15 weeks days at peak ripeness and are depulped the same day into tiled tanks. The seeds then undergo a dry ferment of 30 hours, before being washed and left submerged for twelve hours, in order to stabilize the moisture inside the seed. They are then dried on raised beds for 18-20 days.

Robert has been growing coffee since he was 16, and ended up leaving high school to continue with the family farm. This is not a very common story anymore but he wen’t head first and committed to it. Around that same time he planted a good 2000 pink borbon buds on the farm because he had heard they’ are known for really wild bright flavours, along with generous cupping scores. This lot we have is actually from that first 2000 plants, and it’s real nice.

The pink bourbon is an offshoot of the common bourbon varietal. In most cases they have an essential base of common ‘chocolate’ forward notes, but they also have a lot of yellow or pink fruit character to them as well. Some of these coffees, especially from the Monkaaba group, are very similar to an African coffee, or Ethiopian.