Kolumbie Bourbon Ají

Colombia Los Nogales

You can order this coffee in prepaid returnable containers weighing 250 g and 1 kg. When choosing the quantity variant, the package is automatically loaded into the basket at a price of CZK 50 for a 250 g container and CZK 100 for a 1 kg container.
In order to support the circulation of returnable containers and reduce the consumption of plastic, we give our end customers a 5% discount, which is included in the price of each coffee in a returnable container.

Taste profile: strawberry jam, lime cheesecake, yellow kiwi

Region: Huila

Farm: Finca Los Nogales

Farmer: Oscar Hernandéz

Variety: 100% arabica yellow bourbon

Process: washed with lactic fermentation

Altitude: 1 600 - 2 000 masl

Harvest: November - December 2023

Los Nogales is a family farm, or rather a business, that combines tradition with innovation. You will find it in the settlement of El Diamante, not far from the town of Bruselas in the southern part of the department of Huila. Members of the Hernandez family date the establishment of the farm to around 1940.
The Los Nogales farm is represented by the charismatic Oscar Hernandéz, who is the third generation of farmers. He is an energetic, always positive-minded and innovative person not only for his family, but also for the wider environment.
His dad, Ricaurte Hernandéz was the first to prove that in Brussels you can find the best coffees from all over Colombia. In 2006, he won the Colombian Cup of Excellence and, as the locals say, Ricaurte "put" Bruselas, and with it the entire Huila region, on the selection coffee map.

The farm

Finca Los Nogales is a family farm, or rather a company, that combines tradition with innovation. It is located in the hamlet of El Diamante, just outside the town of Bruselas in the southern part of the Huila department.

The three pillars of Fincy Los Nogales' approach:

Terroir – the soil gives us life and also gives it to the coffee trees that grow on it. If we just exploit the land and don't take care of it, we will soon have nowhere to grow coffee. In contrast to intensive farming and the conventional approach to fertilization, the entire Los Nogales team thinks about long-term sustainability.

1. Terroir – the soil gives us life and also gives it to the coffee trees that grow on it. If we just exploit the land and don't take care of it, we will soon have nowhere to grow coffee. In contrast to intensive farming and the conventional approach to fertilization, the entire Los Nogales team thinks about long-term sustainability. However, less intensive, but also less concentrated and more complex cultivation in the long term ensures that future generations will also be able to grow coffee on the same land.

2. Genetics – the second important ingredient in coffee production is genetic material. That is, the varieties you choose to work with. At Los Nogales Farm you will find traditional indigenous varieties of Arabica that have been grown in Colombia since the 18th century, such as Týpica, newer more resistant varieties such as Castillo or Colombia, but also exotic varieties imported from other countries and continents such as Gesha or Sudan Rume.
3. Science and passion – at Los Nogales, innovation is at stake. The coffee world is constantly evolving and its connection with scientific knowledge is becoming more and more commonplace, or rather a necessity. Therefore, Oscar uses the experience of biochemists, agricultural engineers, microbiologists, but also the experience of accountants in the team, and he himself is a very capable manager. No one lacks passion for what they do, they pull together and if they have any differences of opinion among themselves, they take it as an asset.

Coffee processing at the Los Nogales farm

Only ripe cherries are picked by hand from the coffee trees. The selection continues by immersing the cherries in tanks of water and removing the floating grains, the so-called floates, and only the best cherries advance. Before the processing itself, the sorted and washed cherries are disinfected with ozone, which ensures that the content of unwanted microorganisms is reduced to a minimum.
Each variety and each individual microlot has its own processing "recipe". For some, a thermal (warm) shock is used to start the fermentation process, for others, simple oxidation is sufficient. Both help to start the breakdown of sugars in the pulp of the coffee cherries, which will ensure the smooth progress of the fermentation processes.
The microlots then travel to the depulper, a mill that removes the husks from the coffee. Coffee pods contain a valuable sugary juice that is squeezed out in Los Nogales and used for fermentation. The hulled coffee beans are moved to fermentation plastic barrels where they are mixed with a little water and a sweet viscous liquid.
Then it depends on what fermentation process will be chosen for the given lot, whether lactic fermentation or another, or a combination of them. Accordingly, microorganisms such as lactobacilli are added to the barrels.
After fermentation, the next important step is the drying process, during which the grain is preserved. If the coffee beans are dried too quickly and violently, they will not be stable. In Los Nogales, they dry fermented microlots for up to 21 days to reach the ideal moisture between 10% and 12%.
At the Los Nogales farm, they focus on sustainable coffee cultivation, which is why one of the key processes is also the treatment of waste water. They have their own wastewater treatment and purification station on the farm.

Coffee from Oscar Hernandez is exceptional in its processing. The hand-picked ripe cherries were allowed to oxidize for 50 hours at temperatures of up to 50˚C. Then they were washed and disinfected with ozone. This was followed by removal of the skins, from which the juice was squeezed and mixed with the grains in fermentation barrels. After the addition of lactic bacteria, fermentation took place for 144 hours. Finally, the cherries were washed and dried for about 20 days.