Colombia - La Divisa | Castillo Natural

Sebastián Gómez grows Castillo at La Divisa, a farm in Circacia, Quindío situated at 1,700–1,800 m.a.s.l. The Castillo variety is a cross between Timor Hybrid and Caturra to combine disease resistance with a strong cup profile. It was developed by Colombia's Federación Nacional de Cafeteros through its research centre, Cenicafé, and released in 2005. La Divisa has a longer history in specialty coffee. Diofanor Ruiz, who purchased the 14-hectare farm in 2005, cultivated it alongside a diverse mix of fruit trees and native species including Guamo, Guayacanes, and Tigua, and has worked with Cofinet since 2017. For this natural lot, cherries are selectively hand-harvested and hand-sorted at La Divisa's sorting area, floated to remove low-density, underripe, or defective fruit, then transported to Cofinet's processing centre, La Pradera, in Grainpro bags. At La Pradera, cherries are floated again and hand-sorted before undergoing 45 hours of aerobic fermentation. They are then dried on raised beds for 11 days, monitored and turned regularly, to a target moisture content of 9.5–11%.