Hush Hush. Cafe De Colombia

Highlights

“Campo Hermoso sits in Circasia, Quindío between 1,450 and 1,600 meters, where Edwin Noreña — third-generation coffee grower, agronomist and Q-Grader — runs what is effectively an R&D centre for coffee, controlling temperature, time, pH, sugar concentration, yeasts and musts to build fermentation protocols for individual varieties. Wush Wush is an ancestral Ethiopian variety from the Wushwush area of Kaffa that found a second home in the high-altitude farms of Colombia and Central America. Here the cherries are selectively picked above 18 °Brix, washed and classified for two hours, then held 24 hours in low-oxygen conditions at 18-22 °C. Whole cherries then go into 96 hours of carbonic maceration in 2,000 kg tanks, with the fermentation must collected at roughly pH 4.0 and 11.5 °Brix, inoculated with a specific yeast and recirculated over the coffee every 48 hours for two cycles at about 18 °C. The cherries stay intact through a ten-day greenhouse dry at 65% relative humidity.”