*SPECIAL RELEASE* Colombia - Diego Bermudez - Lychee

BACK FOR 2025, LYCHEEeeeeee!

SKITTLES, PEACH, RHUBARB, LIME

If you’ve had his stuff before, words aren’t needed. If you haven’t, this stuff is amazing. My all time favourite producer, unlike anything else, it’s something to be tried. This is also the hallowed Lychee process (Y-05), peachy, rhubarb, skittle, lime dreams. Superb. This was my ‘blurb’ when I first got a Lychee lot in back in 2021, and I think it still stands:

I’m really conscious of ‘emperors new clothes’ when it comes to coffee and tasting notes, and I tend to think if you see a flavour note of something mad like ‘candied rhubarb wrapped in a fig roll that’s then been gently laced in liquorice snap under the light of a full moon’, then chances are you’ll look for that flavour in the coffee, even if it probably doesn’t taste like that.

This bean though is something else, I’ve never tasted a coffee this good and I don’t think I’m falling for ‘emperors new clothes’. In the cup there is an incredibly silky caramel body with sweet peach and rhubarb, and an amazing aroma while brewing (especially filter), it’s complex but perfectly balanced, the best coffee I’ve ever had. I know the price is a little steep compared to our other offerings, and I nearly fell off my chair when I initially saw the green bean price, but I think it’s worth it.

In terms of roast level, it’s light/medium, I think it absolutely bangs on filter, but also makes for a silly espresso if you have the patience to dial in, filter is my go to for this though. Anyway, I’m off to pray to the gods of coffee for getting this in for me. Cheers, Joel.

THE BEAN AND PROCESSING

Diego Samuel now 39 years old who was born in Bolivar Cauca, has dedicated the last 13 years of his life to growing coffee and to also gaining a deep understanding and knowledge on the processing and production of high-end specialty coffee that is almost unparalleled in the unique flavour and profiles produced.

As part of a tight knit family Diego works on their farm in Cauca. Together they are involved on the pursuit of continual learning and striving to achieve the next level with their processing. They built their own lab on the farm to firstly understand about cupping and roasting so they could then start to curate their own fermentation protocols for them to begin experimenting with. These experiments and novel approach to coffee have allowed to him to soar and exceed winning several awards from 2015 onwards.

As well as being an accomplished cupped Diego has also achieved the CQI level 2 processing course qualification which allowed him to get a base for seeing how cup profiles could be guided depending on microorganisms, ph and temperature.

The Villa Esperanza - Paraiso farm in El Tambo, Cauca sits at 1700 masl and covers 27 ha of land and is planted with Castillo, Colombia, Caturra and geisha. The farm focuses on technology and the critical processes that and intricate in producing coffee of this mark. From the selection to the meticulous drying which is done in a way to mitigate the changeable climatic conditions allowing them to replicate coffees of such high standards.

All these lots selected come from the Castillo variety, which again disproves myths that still question the quality this varietal can produce when the treatment of the raw product is taken into such depth to draw out its light and true potential.

Y-05 - Process

The process of this profile begins with the proper harvesting of the coffee cherries, at an optimum point of ripeness. Then the coffee cherries are disinfected with ozone, and they are transferred to the cherry fermentation tanks, in which an anaerobic fermentation process is carried out for 72 hours submerged in water.

Then the coffee is pulped and demucilaged; the mucilage and pulp are taken to the pilot plant to carry out the production of the specific microorganisms of the process and generate the culture medium that contains the precursors of aromas and flavours produced in the fermentation. Then this culture is added to the tanks fermentation for 36 hours to fix the precursors to the coffee beans through pressure. Then a thermal shock process is carried out to fix a greater amount of precursors and seal the coffee for a good drying process.

The coffee is then dried in a dehumidifier to remove humidity, preserving the soft notes of the coffee and avoiding the over-oxidation of the coffee seed and stopping the metabolic processes to avoid overfermentation.