Colombia – Honey Aponte

This honey process lot from the El Páramo region in Aponte is freighted with unrefined sugar sweetness, with top notes hinting at fresh and dried fruits. Aromatically speaking, the coffee produces clean notes of date sugar, dried apple, and delicious hints of cooked fruits. This brewed coffee has a very nice core sweetness, with complex elements of molasses and date sugar. The cup shows plump fruit accents that bring a lively acidic quality to the cup. Look for hints of dark berries, yellow peach, dried cherry, tart tamarind, and a pleasantly bitter citrus peel note. El Páramo ticks off a lot of boxes for espresso, too, with thick, creamy mouthfeel, dense chocolate flavors, and red fruits edging into the mix.

This honey processed coffee comes from an indigenous group in a nearby region called Aponte, just east of Buesaco town. This lot is comprised of three neighboring farms in the Aponte Vereda of ‘El Páramo’. The people of Aponte are Inga, a pre-Colombian ethnic group related to the Incas, their native tongue being Inga Kichwa. Aponte is located in a misty páramo region around 1900 meters above sea level and the farmers in this growing region produce mainly Caturra an Variedad Colombia, the latter being a disease resistant hybrid. What’s interesting about the coffee from this region is that honey processing is the standard post harvest process method. Each producer handles their own processing at home too, which can mean quite a bit of flavor variation from one neighbor to the next. The land where the coffee is grown is owned by the community, but each producer is in charge of specific plots and can sell the coffee they produce. Honey Processing is a processing method where the coffee cherry and some of the fruit is mechanically removed, leaving behind a thin layer of fruit which is then laid out on raised beds to dry. Drying can take more than 2 weeks, the prolonged exposure to the coffee fruit causing a very subtle and slow fermentation to occur, and often imparts fruit-like flavors in the coffee itself. The fruited elements in this particular lot are tempered by hefty bittersweetness.

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