Colombia | Quindio, Jairo Arcila, Washed (Co-fermented with cherries and wine yeast)

This coffee is a juice bomb topped with sweet cocktail cherries! Actually it’s cherries all over the process! It all starts with hand picking the ripest coffee cherries, then anaerobically fermenting them with the fruit we know as garden cherries to deliver, in your cup, notes of… guess what? Cherries!

Region

Quindío lies in Colombia’s Coffee Triangle, a lush mountainous region known for its rich volcanic soils, ideal climate and long-standing coffee-growing tradition. Today, the region is increasingly focused on specialty coffee, with a new generation of farmers driving quality and innovation.

Farmer

Jairo Arcila is a third-generation coffee grower from Quindío. After more than 40 years working in coffee processing, he now manages six farms together with his sons, including Santa Monica. Their focus on careful harvesting, sorting and processing has resulted in expressive coffees with distinctive flavour profiles.

Processing

Only fully ripe coffee cherries are carefully selected, hand-sorted and floated to remove underripe or defective cherries. The cherries then undergo 48 hours of dry anaerobic fermentation with added cherries and wine yeast, which enhances the coffee’s juicy fruit character and complexity. After fermentation, the coffee is pulped and thoroughly washed, with the wastewater treated through an environmentally friendly filtration system. The beans are then carefully dried on raised beds and regularly turned to ensure even drying, until they reach an ideal moisture content of 9.5–11%.