Colombia Marco Fidel Rodriguez Pink Bourbon: Sample Coffee Roasters

Colombia
Marco Fidel Rodriguez
Pink Bourbon

This microlot of washed Pink Bourbon (which we’ve bought in full!) shows the quality potential of this variety: complex and highly fruit-driven.

Body Acidity

Roasted omni for filter and espresso

Marco Fidel Rodriguez has been on our shelves yearly since 2015, but this time, it’s a tiny microlot-grade washed Pink Bourbon that we’ve been able to purchase exclusively in full.

VERY SPECIAL

We’ve featured many different coffees from Marco Fidel Rodriguez since 2015. In fact, he’s our favourite Colombian producer (he’s lovingly known within our team as MFR).

This season, we were able to buy exclusively a very small microlot-grade washed Pink Bourbon, which highlights the potential of the varietal to achieve complex and highly fruit-driven profiles. Nothing to envy from Geishas!

This year the harvest has been quite small, likely due to poor weather, so we’re very excited to bring you this coffee from Marco again to the Very Special line-up (the last time his name was here was March 2022). Long live MFR!

FINCA EL BALCON

Marco Fidel inherited Finca El Balcon from his father. The location of this 11-hectare patch of land is privileged: at 1780 metres above the sea level, it overlooks the Laboyos Valley on one side and lakes and waterfalls on the other.

Marco has been surrounded by coffee as far as he can remember: he is in his late 50s and has been producing specialty coffee for almost 20 years. Before this, he used to sell his crop wet or de-pulped—that is, unprocessed and before fermentation. After making the switch, he’s learned a lot about production, management and environmental and financial sustainability, creating a steady income for this family.

Marco Fidel works with his wife, Ruth, and his two sons. The family focuses on taking care of his coffee trees while he is in charge of managing the farm workers. The post-harvest process is carried out by the whole family.

Ruth also manages another undertaking, growing diverse plants and flowers for consumption and decoration. Their short-term plans are to renovate and improve their house, as well as to continue focusing on ways they can improve what they do on the farm.

MARCO AND PINK BOURBON

Marco first planted Pink Bourbon coffee trees eight years ago and planted a second lot of this variety around three years ago. It makes now around 20% of the crop, with the remainder being Caturra.

Pink Bourbon has great selling potential but it also has some challenges: more attention has to be paid during cherry picking to make sure they are at the right level of ripeness because the varietal can over-ripen very quickly and doesn’t last as long on the tree. Trees are more resilient to coffee leaf rust but also produce fewer cherries than other varieties.

HARVEST & PROCESS

The cherries grow under the shade of cachingo, guamo and cedro native trees, then picked at their ripest point.

The processing method is fully washed + fermented for 24 hours, then shade-dried in covered patios for 15-18 days and finally packed in Excelso EP Screen 15+ SCA Specialty Grade bags.

A LONG-TIME AFFAIR

We’ve been buying coffee from Marco for a while! Right now, a large part of his total crop comes to our roastery—big fans, as we said!

Here’s Reuben, Marco Fidel and his family back in 2015…

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Sourcing and ingredients

100% Pink Bourbon coffee beans, provided by Caravela and roasted by us on Gadigal land / Sydney.

Green coffee certified Organic, Rainforest Alliance, and Fairtrade.

Country grade: Unknown ?

Packaging

Bag: ABA Certified home compostable
Label: Recyclable
Valve (on bags larger than 250g): General waste
Coffee ordered online is shipped in a recyclable cardboard box

Brewing this coffee

We recommend brewing this coffee 15–49 days post-roast. If pre-ground, brew as soon as possible. Our advice on storing coffee.

1:3
dose:yield
ratio

To brew on espresso, we recommend using 20g of beans (dose) to get 60g of espresso out (yield), during 24-28 seconds.

g dose

g yield

View the how to brew espresso (single origin) guide.

1:16.7
beans:water
ratio

To brew in infusion/fed brewers (V60, Chemex) use a ratio of 1:16.7 ratio of beans:water.

g beans

g water

View full recipes and videos in our brewguides

1:14.3
beans:water
ratio

To brew in immersion brewers (plunger, AeroPress, Kalita, batch brewer) we recommend using a 1:14.3 ratio of beans:water

g beans

g water

View full recipes and videos in our brewguides

1:12
beans:water
ratio

To brew as cold brew we recommend using a 1:12 ratio of beans:water

g beans

g water

View full recipes and videos in our brewguides

Producer: Marco Fidel Rodriguez
Country: Colombia
Region: Filo De Chillurco, Huila
Varietals: Pink Bourbon
Process: Washed
Harvested: August 2023
Body: Medium
Acidity: Medium
Tasting notes: Peach, strawberry, black tea
Roast style: Omni

Varietals

Pink Bourbon varietal

Pink Bourbon is an Ethiopian Heirloom variety (or subvariety)—though, until very recently (~2023), it was thought to be a rare and spontaneous hybrid/mutation of Red and Yellow Bourbon.

The location

Coffee from Colombia

Colombia is one of the largest coffee producers in the world and benefits greatly from having one of the most unique and complex set of micro-climates of all coffee producing nations.

The Huila region of Colombia

This region boasts the perfect combination of high quality soil and geography and is quickly becoming one of the largest coffee producing regions in Colombia. One of the best regarded regions for high quality, fruit driven coffee.

Farm processes

Washed process

Machines are used to remove the flesh from the coffee cherry before being fermented in water, washed again, and finally sun dried. This process tends to result in more distinct, cleaner flavours.