Risaralda 19+, Colombia

A classic from South America

This Colombian coffee is produced by approximately 30 coffee producers from communities in the Department of Risaralda which is situated in the central Andean region of western Colombia, humbly equidistant from the famed narco territories of Medellin and Cali, and 400km from the country’s capital, Bogota.

The farms are located at altitudes of around 1,525 metres above sea level and these communities range in size from 9 to 15 hectares.

Coffee from the Central region is known to be well balanced, with the regions to the North and South tending to polarise more along the flavour axis. This batch uses the Castillo cultivar, a new type developed by the Colombian Coffee Federation a few years ago that was designed to be rust-resistant in the continual battle for healthy crops for the farmers and their families.

There was a backlash from farmers due to the heritage and known qualities of existing indigenous varietals like Caturra, however, Castillo has been resilient and shown to hold its own among Q-graders (coffee specialists who score coffees, much like tasters of wine), as can be seen from this coffee’s high score.

Coffees are generally screened by size, with larger sizes being considered of higher quality and value (although, this is not always necessarily the case) and screen sizes of 17/18 are usually pinned to the top grade coffees in Colombia.  This coffee is screen 19 upwards, which means the beans are huge!

Can you taste it?

There’s a hint of banana up front, although not overwhelmingly so, which quickly smoothes into familiar choc-nut territory.  The smoothness continues into the aftertaste, which leaves a toffee and caramel flavour in the mouth.

Our recommendation

This is a perfectly balanced coffee harnessing both traditional choc-nut flavours, with syrupy stone-fruit acidity.  As such, it’s a perfect candidate for multi-use brewing and is at home equally on filter as it is on espresso.  For espresso orders, we’ll push the roast a tad to smooth out the acidity and increase body and sweetness.

Our picks for this either the french press/cafetiere or as the espresso base for your milk drinks.

Remember that the coffee is roasted to order as a fresh product — we recommend that you drink it within 2 weeks, 4 weeks at most from the roasting date, or the coffee will be far from its best!