Luz Angela Rojas, Finca Chorro Alto

Our second year with this stunning coffee from Luz Angela Rojas and her farm Finca Chorro Alto. Luz Angela has a story which is becoming more familiar with young professionals returning to their roots and taking over their family farms. Angela grew up surrounded by coffee helping her parents. During a period of coffee price crisis her parents urged her to go and study and do something different. She did exactly that and became a healthcare professional, but coffee was always calling her back.

This led to her returning to het family farm and used her knowledge of healthcare management to integrate this into coffee production. A new project was born: a family dream that not only seeks to preserve the roots of coffee but to transform, innovate, and make it unique. Ángela is committed to offering differentiated coffee with a wide variety of flavours, but to achieve this, it is essential to begin with quality agronomic work. Her goal is for the coffees to be so exquisite that, without the need for complicated processes, they can captivate the final customers.

The project is entirely family-run, and everyone involved is more motivated than ever to continue learning and taking the coffee from the farm to new horizons. Ángela, with her experience, dedication, and vision, has transformed the family legacy into a model of innovation within coffee farming, never losing sight of the essence of what it means to work the land and the coffee.

Some of you may recognise the person alongside Angela in the main pic. This is Edinson Argote and we've had a number of amazing coffees from him in the last few years. This new partnership between these young producers creates a powerhouse of knowledge and care across their two farms (Chorro Alto and Quebraditas). Edinson's knowledge of advanced processing techniques including inoculation and thermal shock are evident in this coffee but in a minimalist way.

For this natural Chiroso, the following steps were undertaken:

1. Harvesting: Making sure that at least 80% of the picked cherries are fully ripe.

2. Floating: This step guarantees the removal of unripe, overripe, and dried cherries.

3. Processing: NATURAL – Double fermentation. The initial fermentation lasts 60 hours, then the coffee is dried for approximately twelve days until it reaches 20% moisture. It is then rehydrated with “mosto” for 4 days with specific yeast.

4. Drying: After the second fermentation, the coffee is dried for 76 hours at an average temperature of 40°C.

5. Stabilisation: The coffee is stabilised in GrainPro-type bags.

Chiroso is yet another variety that was originally thought to be a hybrid of a major high yielding variety.. in this case Caturra. But genetic testing by Dr Christopher Montagnon from R2D Vision has shown this to be part of the core Ethiopian landrace group (just like Pink Bourbon and Bourbon Aji).