For many of you, Diego Samuel Bermudez Tapia will need no introduction. In recent years he has gained a reputation as one of Colombia's most innovative producers. He is responsible for some of the most memorable coffees that we have tasted over the past couple of years, so it gives us great pleasure to have secured some of what has become a stone-cold classic - his extended anaerobic fermentation, washed thermal shock castillo. In the cup it is tropical and complex, with notes of passion fruit, lychee, peach and rose.
The coffee first of all undergoes anaerobic fermentation in cherry for 28 hours in tanks with relief valves at a temperature of 19°C. The coffee is then pulped, before undergoing a similar fermentation, this time for 40 hours at 21°C. The coffee is then washed with water at 40°C, and then again with water at 12°C, a process that Diego refers to as ‘thermal shock’. The washed coffee then undergoes a controlled drying at 42°C and relative humidity of 25% until a bean moisture level of 10-11% has been achieved. The resulting cup is just rewards for the care and attention paid by Diego and his team during processing.
Diego was born in Bolivar, Cauca, and has dedicated the last 13 years of his life to growing coffee. He works on his farm, El Paraíso, with his wife, two brothers, and two daughters, and has a seemingly insatiable thirst for learning, improving, experimentation, and pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with the coffee that he grows. He built a laboratory at the farm, in the first instance to learn about cupping and roasting, facilitating real-time feedback on the success of his experiments, and has since gone on to develop fermentation protocols that have seen the farm go from strength to strength, producing some of the world's most exceptional and distinctive coffees, and winning multiple awards in the process.
