La Cristalina "Colombia"

Cranberry - Cherry - Blueberry - Peach - Plum

Origin: Colombia
Region: Quindio, Quimbaya
Producer: German and Alberto Grajales, La Cristalina Arabica variety: Castillo
Altitude: 1500 masl
Process: Honey anaerobic

HISTORY
La Cristalina is a farm of around 15 ha. Is a family farm, with more than 100
years of tradition. Cristalina’s main crop is coffee, mainly Castillo. It also has platano, mandarin and orange trees. 5 ha of the farm are covered by shade given by nogal cafetero tree.
After the coffee is floated the cherries depulped with the minimum amount of water needed. After that, the coffee is placed on the fermentation tanks for 86 hours as aerobic fermentation. Room temperature and coffee temperature are always measure. PH and brix content as well. In this way we know how the fermentation is developing over time.
When the 86 hours are over the coffee is placed on movable African beds and dried on the patio.
Dried on movable raised beds with partial sun exposure during daytime with good weather. During nighttime when temperature drops, and relative humidity increases the drying beds are stored inside the production building. The key for black honey is to remove from little to non-mucilage during the depulping process, also avoiding direct sun for the first days
The cherries get hand sorted at picking, later sorted during the floating process and last selection is at the milling where the coffee is selected by screen size and defects. At the milling the final stage of selecting is made by hand, because the electronical machine is not very accurate on the selection.
At the farm after drying to 10-11% humidity the coffee gets packed in GrainPro/ ECOTACT bags and sisal and stored at the farm, at 20°C. Usually after 1 to 1,5 months the coffee is stabilized and ready for the milling and then export.