Producer: Diego Samuel Bermudez Farm: Finca El Paraiso Location: Piendamo, Cauca Variety: Caturra, Chiroso Process: Thermal Shock Washed Altitude: 1,960 masl Fermentation ▪▪▫▫▫ Sweetness ▪▪▪▫▫ Acidity ▪▪▫▫▫ Roast ▪▫▫▫▫ Finca El Paraiso is the realization of one family’s dream of a coffee farm as a kind of paradise. It started to materialize in 2008 when Diego Samuel Bermudez and his family began to cultivate an assortment of traditional, novel, and exotic coffee varieties across the well-endowed and sky-reaching terrains of Vereda Los Arados, Tunía in the Piendamó municipality of the Cauca department in Colombia. It is their family’s flagship farm, spanning 49 hectares, and the headquarters of their trailblazing post-harvest processing company, INDESTEC S.A.S, shorthand for “Innovation and Technological Development for Agriculture.” This is their platform for ongoing research into and the promotion of precise and purposeful experimental methods and techniques, like the stirringly named “Thermal Shock,” intended to create a cornucopia of peerless cup profiles. Their aim — to distinguish Finca El Paraiso among the department and the nation’s accomplished and prolific producers, generate greater interest across global specialty coffee lovers, elevate the value of Cauca-grown coffees, and on the whole, contribute to continuously raising the profile and position of Colombia as an innovative and pre-eminent origin of higher-end specialty coffees. Finca El Paraiso’s location on the Pan-American route between Popayán, Cauca’s capital, and Cali, a municipality in the neighboring department Valle del Cauca, with a prevailing climate described as temperate-humid and the frequent incidence of winds from the Pacific, has been attributed for the tropical notes frequently perceived in their coffees. Amid this backdrop, Finca El Paraiso truly caught the specialty coffee world’s attention when Diego Samuel made it to the Top 10 of the 2018 Cup of Excellence with a double anaerobic Bourbon, and again counted among the 2019 winners with a washed anaerobic Castillo. The Caturra Chiroso variety reportedly developed from genetic mutations in the high-altitude mountains of Antioquia, Colombia, allowing it to thrive in colder temperatures and low light, which increases flavor compound development. Finca El Paraiso and INDESTEC thoroughly document their structured and creative processing methods for consistent repeatability and diverse flavor profiles. Precision in configuring processing parameters at every significant phase is a hallmark. For this Caturra Chiroso, 90% ripe and 10% half-ripe cherries were collected for spice-tinged, citrusy precursors. Cherries were pre-cleaned, floated, and disinfected with ozone to prevent misdirected fermentation. An initial anaerobic inertization with CO2 was performed for 48 hours at 18°C and 20 psi before pulping. The second fermentation stage involved inoculating a co-culture of yeasts and lactic acid bacteria to accentuate citrus notes, followed by anaerobic fermentation for 48 hours under increasing pressure up to 20 psi at 18°C. Thermal Shock Washing was applied by rapidly heating fermentation fluids to 40°C to open bean membranes, facilitating attachment of aroma and flavor precursors, immediately followed by a 12°C cold water wash to seal these in. Custom drying and dehumidifying technology removes moisture by mass transfer without high temperatures, ensuring a less abrupt transition to seed dormancy, allowing extended storage without quality defects and guaranteeing high-quality green coffee.