Colombia CGLE - Mandela XO

Variety: Mandela Process: XO Region: Valle del Cauca Altitude: 1,700 masl Tasting notes: Plum, peach and citrus Producer information: Café Granja La Esperanza is a family project in Valle del Cauca, Colombia, led by the brothers Rigoberto and Luis Eduardo Herrera, the third generation of a coffee-growing family. Today they work several farms, the best known being Potosí, Cerro Azul, La Esperanza and Las Margaritas, between 1,400 and 2,000 masl. They were the first to bring the Geisha variety to Colombia. Since then they have become a benchmark for their choice of varieties, their precise fermentation and their controlled drying. This lot comes from the La Esperanza farm. About the variety: Mandela is a variety exclusive to Granja La Esperanza. It was created by crossing Caturra with Timor Hybrid, to gain resistance to leaf rust. After several generations, they selected the plants with the best productivity and the best cup quality. It is slow, painstaking work, and the result is a very expressive variety, with notes of fruit, spice and berries. About the process: XO is a special process developed by the farm: a controlled fermentation and a staged drying, designed to build ripe fruit, sweetness and almost liqueur-like aromas. The ripest cherries are hand-picked and their Brix is measured, so that only the sweetest are used. They are then fermented whole in sealed containers, without oxygen, for several days. They are first dried with controlled heat and then slowly, in the sun. The result is a dense, fruity coffee, but with clarity and acidity.