We have been working with José for 3 years now and have loved watching his flourishing journey in getting his coffee the recognition it deserves. José left the textile sector to dedicate himself to coffee full-time in 2015 when he was 23 years old, to help his father re-establish the farm after his mother, Clara, passed away. The brand “1959” is named in honor of the year of her birth. José has come a long way on his coffee education journey and we are tasting the rewards of his dedication. After receiving feedback from his colleagues at the SCA Expo in Seattle in 2015, José returned to Colombia and began studying coffee and applied some of the conversations he had in Seattle about pH, Brix and temperature control. Along with the help of his father, a food scientist, they began working on the basics: Cleanliness, manual selection of ripe cherry, even and controlled drying (slow and shade essential to José’s process) and we are now happy to see his innovations bring us this Panela Sticky Pink Bourbon. A beautiful thing we see happening in Colombia is that producers buy cherries from each other to process in their own labs or processing stations. These Pink Bourbon Cherries were purchased by José from Finca El Diamante in Huila and brought to his processing station, La Clarita in Quindio. The Process: Day 1: Delicate Gesha coffee cherries get hand-picked at the peak of ripeness at Finca Las Marias, high up on a North Face of the Western side of the East Andes outside of Pijao, Quindío, Colombia, then transported to La Clarita Lab & Drying Station Southeast of El Éden, Qunidío. Day 2: The coffee cherrries are then placed in open tanks to ferment in a 12˚C refrigerated room for 24 hrs. Day 3: The Cherries are pulped and rinsed and put back into the refrigerated storage room in open tanks for another 24 hours. Day 4: The pulped coffee is washed, drained, and laid out to dry in three-tier raised beds. Days 5 - 6: The coffee is laid on the first (highest) bed for 1-2 days to remove excess moisture and then moved down to the second or third tier, which are less exposed to the sun. Day 7 - 16: When the coffee reaches 20-25% moisture level, the coffee is collected from the drying beds and placed into hermetically sealed grain pro bags and put back into the refrigerated storage for 8-10 days to slow ferment. Days 17 - 27 +: The coffee is then put back on the third (lowest) tier of the drying beds to dry slowly to the perfect 10.5% moisture, carefully sorted, dry milled, and rested before shipment. Leon visited Jose’s farm and lab end of September '23 and wrote up a field report to capture Jose’s beautiful farm, lab, and family. Hit up the Explore / News section of our site to learn about this special place and partner. Thanks to Yellow Rooster Coffee Imports for the supply and for visiting our roastery with Jose a couple of times in the last years.