Edwin Noreña is known by friends as “El Alquimista” (the alchemist), and I now understand why. He is a third generation coffee grower who has been experimenting with interesting additions to the fermentation of his coffee microlots. Along with 30 families that work there, Edwin operates Finca Campo Hermoso, which is a 15-hectare farm outside of Circasia. This coffee itself is a Pink Bourbon, a rare cultivar named for the pink color of its cherries. After harvest, a multi-stage anaerobic fermentation is used, including a co-fermentation with Galaxy hops. Edwin’s “IPA” Processing or this particular lot involves a three-step triple fermentation, followed by raised bed drying. The first is a kind of pre-fermentation in cherry, just after picking, and lasts 32 hours, allowing the fruit to soften and the sugars to peak. The fermented cherry is then depulped and the parchment is fermented in an open tank for another 32 hours. Once the parchment fermentation is complete, the parchment is moved to an anaerobic (oxygen deprived) tank where it is combined with the sticky, sugary runoff from the first whole cherry fermentation, as well as Galaxy hops, and ferments again for 32 hours in this final environment. Once all fermentations are complete the coffee is sundried on raised beds for 10-15 days.