Colombia

Alirio Muñoz

Washed process Castillo, Caturra

Flavour: red apple, butterscotch, creamy mouthfeel

There are some origins that always get our attention here at the roastery.

It’s great to be back in Huila with this delivery: one of our favourite growing regions in Colombia. The incredibly varied geography and microclimates of the region lead to diverse and complex flavours even between farms in the same region.

Colombia is also unusual in the coffee world for having two alternating harvest seasons each year: the main harvest and a smaller mitaca harvest. Within this pattern the geography can mean farms 100km apart may be in completely different harvest patterns.

UK cafe and roaster Workshop have written about visiting Huila in 2014.

Making a stable living without abandoning the countryside

The producer of this coffee, Alirio Muñoz, is 53 years old. He’s been farming coffee for as long as he can remember, having learned from his grandfather.

While he stumps his trees every seven years, allowing them to grow back to their full height and maximum production for a few years before stumping them again, it is not until they’ve lived for roughly one quarter of a century (or half of Alirio’s life) that he actually digs them out and replaces them with new trees.

Over the past 10 years or so, he’s begun to pass the same practices of husbandry and renewal on to his kids, as he sees an ageing population of producers as the greatest risk coffee farming faces in the years to come.

By accessing a specialty market based on fixed prices rather than premiums paid above the daily price of commodity coffee, he is aiming to demonstrate to them that they can make a stable living without having to abandon the countryside.

He hopes that one day his kids may be able to say, “Thanks to my father and my grandfather, I am a coffee farmer because I learned how from them.”

Castillo

You’ll notice the Castillo varietal included in the crop from this farm alongside the familiar Caturra.

Castillo is a more disease-resistant plant with much higher yields, created by Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia’s research arm CENICAFE as a hybrid of Caturra and Timor varietals, but which remains similar enough to Caturra to have a the same flavour profile.

Initial suspicions of Colombian farmers following its release in 2005, together with some poor-quality first crops earned Castillo a bad reputation.

Thanks to some very high-quality crops, this reputation is now being challenged, and we’re hopeful that the industry’s desire for flavour-rich, high-quality crops can be met with by a varietal that also gives farmers security against the coffee rust fungus.

The US Speciality Coffee Association has led blind sensory and cupping tests which showed Castillo and Caturra producing similar scores, though with slightly different flavours.

They found that the geographic location and farming techniques had a greater impact on score than the varietal:

For farmers choosing between Castillo and Caturra, what they choose to plant may have less impact on cup quality than where and how they grow it. The data from both the cupping panels at Intelligentsia and the sensory analysis at KSU show that cup scores are more strongly correlated with environment and management than with variety.

In other words, growers may do more to increase cup quality through more active soil and shade management, careful harvesting, and improved post-harvest practices than through the intentional selection of one of these varieties over another.

The farms in the trial that produced exceptional Castillo samples also produced exceptional Caturra samples, meaning that high quality was more a function of where farmers are planting coffee and how they are managing it than which variety they are planting.

Some environments are simply better suited than others to produce high cup quality. The problem is that few growers know whether they are in one of those agroecological niches or not. We commonly use elevation as a proxy for quality potential, but are many other environmental variables that affect the suitability of a particular growing environment for high-quality coffee.

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Ethical, traceable sourcing

This page has all the sourcing information (variety, process, region, story, importer, and more) that our importers share with us, and give us permission to use.

The transparency helps us talk confidently about the quality and background of our product, and it helps you know exactly what you’re buying.

Learn more:
Coffee page transparency legend
Our coffee philosophy
Our business approach

Fresh harvest coffee

We only source and roast coffee from each country’s latest harvest season (so the green coffee is never older than 1 year from the time of picking, processing and packing). This ensures the sensory qualities are always at their peak and unaffected by excessive ageing.

Roasted for espresso and filter (best enjoyed black)

Roast style: omni. Omni roasts are designed to brew and taste great both as espresso and filter. Our omni single origins generally sit on Agtron values in the ~70-60 value range. So, technically, they are somewhere in the lighter side of the medium spectrum.

Designed for espresso and filter brewing. Best enjoyed black.

Learn more:
Our Loring Kestrel S35 roaster
Our roasting style and approach

Best brewed within days 15-49 post-roast

The ‘fresh is best’ saying doesn’t apply to coffee (contrary to popular belief). Waiting before opening and brewing your bag of whole coffee beans helps develop peak flavour and acidity.

But heads up: if you buy pre-ground coffee, brew it as soon as possible.

Learn more:
Our recommended brewing window

Try our custom brewing recipes

Our recipes and ratios are tailored to our coffee sourcing and roasting styles, bringing the best flavour and feel out of each coffee.

For pour over, immersion, and other filter brewing styles, check our brew guides.
For our espresso single origins, we recommend a coffee:yield ratio of 1:3:

• Dose: 20g ground coffee
• Yield: 60g espresso
• Total brew time: ~24-28 seconds

This is just a starting point! We encourage you to experiment, taste, and adjust to find the recipe that you enjoy the most.

Learn more:
Our espresso brew guide (single origin)
Brewing ratio calculator

Packaging and sustainability

• Bags: ABA-certified home compostable (AS 5810-2010)
• Labels: recyclable
• Valves (only on +250g bags): general waste
• Box and tape (online orders): recyclable

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Our packaging

Producer

Alirio Muñoz

Country

Colombia

Region

Pitalito, Huila

Altitude

1650m above sea level

Varieties

Castillo, Caturra

Process

washed

Harvested

November 2015

Importer

Silo

Body

Medium

Acidity

Balanced

Tasting notes

Red apple, butterscotch, creamy mouthfeel

Roast style

Omni (filter + espresso)