Supreme Coffee: Colombia Hermanos Burbano

Region: San Agustín, Huila
Altitude: 1930 m.a.s.l.
Variety: Gesha
Processing: Washed

UK Arrival: July 2026

Tasting Notes: Bursting with florals reminiscent of white rose and bergamot. Layered with summery notes of peach, tangerine and lemon verbena supported by a silky texture.

This elegant Gesha comes from El Quebradon in San Agustin, Colombia from a farm founded by three brothers, José, Miguel Ángel and Jesús Burbano. Their story started when their uncle Jaime Muñoz offered José his own farmland to cultivate coffee, but José did not accept right away and instead asked that his brothers would also have a fair share of the farm. Jaime accepted this proposal and thus El Quebradon was born. 

The brothers are not the only coffee producers in their family. The eldest of nine siblings, Jenaro Burbano was the one to instill the passion for specialty coffee in his brother José and the family have all worked the land since a very young age. The brothers have used their experience and passion to build El Quebradon into not only a family business, but an exciting and creative project that produces coffee sustainably for themselves and the benefit of their land and communities. Each brother brings in his own set of skills and their collaborative approach is reflected in the exceptional coffee they produce. They have continued training in production processes, agronomic management, and quality control. Today they receive technical assistance from an engineer who guides them at every stage of cultivation, strengthening their knowledge and improving results.

Instead of planting more common and high producing coffee varieties, the Burbano brothers decided to utilise the great terroir and climate of San Agustin. They chose more exotic cultivars, such as Pacamara, Sidra, Chiroso and of course this beautiful Gesha. The high elevation, cooler temperatures and rich soil are the perfect conditions to ensure their trees get the best nutrition and are able to develop the maximum sweetness in their fruits.

Washed Processing

This washed Gesha lot is subject to meticulous processing. Only the fully ripe cherries were picked every twenty days between January and March of this year, then they were placed in a wooden hopper to ferment overnight. The next morning they were de-pulped, before a wet fermentation for 72 hours. This developed more of the fruit qualities and silky texture in the coffee while also assisting in breaking down the fruit mucilage on the seeds. Afterwards, they were rinsed four times to clean off the mucilage residue and laid out on raised beds until just the outer parchment layer started to dry. At this point they were moved together into large mounds, slowing down the final drying time to between 21 to 29 days. This slow drying preserved the fruity esters created during fermentation and locked in the more delicate notes of the Gesha, enhancing the floral profile in the final cup.

History of Gesha

The Gesha variety has a long and industry-defining history in specialty coffee. It was an Ethiopian cultivar that first rose to fame back in the early 2000’s when Panamanian farm Hacienda la Esmerelda entered their gesha lot into the Panama cup of Excellence. Cuppers thought there must have been an accidental Ethiopian grown coffee on the table as its fruity sweetness and complex florality was unlike anything being produced in Panama at the time. It won the national competition and was quickly adopted by many other farms throughout Panama, even spreading across Central and South America in Honduras, Costa Rica and Colombia. Since then it has also been the variety of choice for many Barista Championship and Brewers Cup competitors, having won countless national championships and multiple world titles in the past two decades. 

Semilla & Monkaaba

This will be the first lot we have bought from Semilla and the Monkaaba group, with whom we have connected through our friend Rachel Beebe. After roasting with us for eight years we were very sad to see Rachel leave Steampunk back in April, but now she gets to connect us with amazing coffees and wonderful producers through Semilla.

Semilla is an importing company founded in 2019 with a mission to represent the farmers they work with for better or worse, ensuring sustainability by building meaningful relationships along the value chain. They dedicate themselves to ensuring producers receive a fair price for their coffee by helping them access markets and buyers that would otherwise not be accessible to them or too financially risky to pursue.

Semilla works with the Monkaaba group, a collective of coffee growers based in San Agustin, Huila founded by Esnaider Ortega Gomez. For a decade Esnaider worked as a sample roaster and cupper. He saw first hand how smallholder producers did not receive fair feedback on how to improve their coffee or advice on how to access the specialty market. So he set out to change this, hosting weekly roasting and cupping sessions out of his own home in San Agustin, welcoming anyone who wanted to learn more about their coffee and needed advice on how to increase quality or improve their farming practices. After starting with just 6 producers Monkaaba now works with over 60 families. In this network 60% of growers are under 35 years of age, so it is imperative to Esnaider to help them alleviate the risks and find sustainable income to support their families while ensuring a bright future for San Agustin coffee.

A note about packaging

This coffee comes packaged in a beautiful and hard wearing tin. Tins can of course be easily recycled (with other metals) but the very best and most environmentally conscious thing to do with them is to refill them. Find out how to refill or dispose of your Steampunk packaging HERE.