Colombia Arturo Arango El Paraiso Washed Castillo

Description

Why are we featuring this coffee? After reading significant negative commentary regarding Castillo, and producers using coferment techniques to "cover up the flavor of low grade beans" (which is absolute nonsense), we wanted to offer you the opportunity to taste the beans which our partners at Cofinet use to produce our Santa Monica coferments.What's in the cup? This is a well structured and clean Colombia cup with flavors of white grape, juicy raisin, and apricot. This is quite enjoyable, and worthy of sitting amongst other specialty beans.Will it Spro? Pretty mellow as a Turbo shot.Roast Color: 118.6Recommended Minimum Rest: 3 weeksCastillo varietal grown by Arturo Arango in Quindio, washed process, shade dried, 1300-1450 masl.Sold in 300g bags.Brewmaster J's Notes and TipsS&W Arturo Arango El Paraiso washed Castillo Colombia I got a very traditional South American cup with tamarind, green grape, bakers chocolate, hazelnut, and mild spices. It’s not super sweet, but on the order of something like molasses like sweetness. In general cups were pretty easy to brew using my Big Switch 2 recipe. I tried out the ZP6 and the DF64. Both yielded good and pretty similar cups when pushed, with the ZP6 being the slight preference as that tamarind came out a little more on the juicy side. ZP6 was also good when backed off a bit which pulled that green grape note out front. Honestly, I like this kind of coffee purely because it is the washed version of a coffee that’s been made available as so many different iterations of coferment. I like these kinds of apples-apples comparisons as it gives you a better understanding of the impact of the processing vs the inherent aspects of the bean. Also, this was actually a nice break from some of the more fruit/floral-forward cups I’ve had lately. In some ways, it actually reminded me of a South American Tim Wendleboe coffee.Grind 4.9 on ZP6Temp 93CBrewer V60Recipe standard 4 pour 15g/250g recipe 50/80/70/50 lighter pours in the ~5ml/s rangeMore about the producer:This coffee was grown by Arturo Arango at the farm El Paraiso. This coffee is harvested following strict ripeness criteria, floated and hand-sorted to remove any defects. Cherries were then exposed to 30 hours of underwater fermentation before being pulped. The parchment was then gently washed and then dried in temperature controlled conditions until ideal moisture content was achieved.This microlot is 100% Castillo, which was developed by Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros. It is more productive than Caturra and resistant to coffee leaf rust.Arturo Arango is a young coffee farmer who has been producing coffees since 2015. He bought El Paraiso, a 25 hectare farm located at 1300 m.a.s.l. in Barcelona, Quindio. When he bought the farm, most of the coffee trees were more than 25 years old so he started to renew every tree and planted Costa Rica and Java varieties. Besides coffee, you can find other crops such as yucca and lemon. Arturo studied Business Administration and had the opportunity to do his master's degree in agroindustries in Argentina. During his time away from Colombia, Arturo was captivated by then specialty coffee scene. Upon his return to Colombia, he decided to get involved in coffee as he saw an amazing opportunity to be a part of this movement. His focus was on applying the correct agricultural practices on his farm to produce the highest quality coffees he could. Arturo takes great care to remove all the weeds around the base of his coffee trees and disease prevention. The first few years on his farm were spent renewing the trees and improving the practices. After three years, the new trees started bearing fruit and the results were excellent, encouraging Arturo to continue along his path of revitalizing the farm. Arturo feels that collaborating with Cofinet has been a great help in furthering his knowledge, and he values the technical assistance he receives from the Cofinet team. Arturo admires how the coffee industry changed from commercially minded coffee production towards specialty coffee, and has seen this change firsthand, as most of the coffee farmers he knows are now focused on quality more than volume. After finishing his coffee responsibilities, Arturo enjoys walking about his coffee plantation, as it helps to clear his mind and keep him focused.