Colombia - Durley Sánchez's Rosado

Every coffee needs a home. We've helped out Herbert & LaREB by taking on this straggler - while it landed late last year, it's showing zero signs of fade or age, indicative of superlatively well executed processing and drying. 

We know - from both being relatively familiar with the LaREB offer, as well as roasting samples for the cupping we hosted with Herbert - that this coffee can be a bit tricky to roast, especially in a sample roaster, which is why we think it's been skipped over. 

We're confident we've got a pretty good rendition down, and have chosen to take it a bit further in the roaster to maximise the rich acids we find in this delightful Palestina Rosado profile 

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter/Turbo Espresso

Light Roast Influence: This coffee wants to soak up more energy at the end of the roast - practically wants to be a lightest, but that came at the cost of tending towards sweet fruity cereal notes. We've found by managing the energy at the end and taking it a little bit further, we've got juicy acids and cake-like sweetness - and we're loving it. 

Filter: 62g/L, 94°C when fresh, down to 92°C with rest

Espresso: 18g/48g/22-26s

We're tasting: Dark fruit aromatics - plum crumble and stewed blackberries. In the cup it's densely citric and with pasty sweetness, reminding us of lemon drizzle cake. Cooling we find fresher versions of the aromatics, mainly Mirabelle plum and ripe blackberry, and the sweetness evolves to crème caramel, with some gentle black tea notes in the finish. There's hints of soft florals as it cools which adds a little extra complexity. It's a bit like all the elements of a good elevenses, all in one cup.

Traceability

Country of Origin:	Colombia
Region:	El Portal, Palestina, Huila
Producer:	Durley Sánchez
Farm:	El Predio de la Familia Sánchez
Variety:	Rosado
Elevation:	1650 MASL
Process:	Anoxic Washed: Overripe cherries selectively picked and taken straight to processing with no in-husk resting. Depulped and transferred to sealed tanks for a 60-80 hour closed dry-mass fermentation. Parchment then washed clean, then dried on raised beds under greenhouse (marquesina) cover for 15 days.
Import Partner:	LaREB
Harvest:	Crop 25/26 - Arrived UK November 2025. New Purchasing Relationship

The Story

While we've moved on one internal crop cycle in Colombia [and indeed, have the latest pickings heading on the water], this coffee is a perfect example of what we wrote in our FAQs - "We aim to source and rotate the coffees seasonally, but are not opposed to buying coffees “out of season” if they are free of the flavours of age."
This coffee is holding up beautifully, has a lot to say, and we're happy to showcase it and help our import partners out in doing so.

The exporter:
LaReb - La Real Expedición Botánica - are a radical producer-owned export co-operative/movement. Their goal is to develop de-colonised supply chains and operate outside the typical multinational pathways of coffee, and it's a mission that's really resonated with us. By pooling together collective knowledge, financing, quality, export and import, LaReb members are able to define their own terms of engagement. It's genuinely so refreshing to work with Herbert and the team, and we know we'll only continue to grow our purchasing relationship over the years.

Familia Sánchez:

Durley Sánchez's father settled in El Portal, Palestina, in 1949 after moving from Cundinamarca in a period of internal colonisation in Colombia. Her father took Typica seeds with him, starting a legacy of over 75 years of multi-generational coffee farming. 
Her father's move occurred during a period of internal conflict - "La Violencia", a period that reshaped Colombia's coffee geography between 1948 and 1958. Displaced families (and those looking for new opportunities) fled to frontier departments like Huila, claiming uncultivated "baldíos" under Law 200 of 1936, which granted land titles to settlers who demonstrated productive use over five years.

The migration pattern that carried Durley's father from Cundinamarca to Palestina was replicated across thousands of families, transforming Huila from a frontier region into Colombia's leading coffee-producing department. Displaced campesinos brought generations of coffee knowledge from established growing areas, adapting their expertise to Huila's volcanic soils and abundant water sources. Palestina, officially founded in 1937 and situated at high elevation in the Macizo Colombiano, offered ideal conditions for the Typica and Bourbon varieties these families cultivated, and what was born from violence and forced migration ultimately built the small-holder coffee economy that now defines the region, with Huila now well known as a hotbed of speciality coffee production.

Durley is one of four siblings alongside Orlando, Rigoberto, and Marisela who carried on the family farm, and her grandfather split the family estate amongst the siblings. Durley's son - Yoiner Mosquera - is perhaps one of the most notable of the next generation, as he's carried on in coffee production whilst his siblings have moved to life in the city and corporate careers. The Sánchez family were early adopters of the Rosado variety (née Pink Bourbon, or "Bourbon Rosado" in Spanish) - an Ethiopian landrace re-discovered in Huila after a slightly murky history as to how the geneline exactly ended up in the region. We continue to absolutely love the profile of Rosado's from Palestina, and it's been a pleasure to deepen our buying connections with LaREB who have access to these incredible coffees.