Freak & Unique XIX - 'Take your Seat' | Colombia | Diego Bermudez Y05 Process

An invitation to rest in an empty iconic chair from pop culture. Which one will you take? The 90’s sitcom Friends’ coffee shop couch or Morpheus’ red armchair enquiring which pill to take in the Matrix. Somewhere for us to sink into and transport us to that time and place like a good coffee brings us nostalgia and escapism.

Our very limited series, Freak & Unique continues with this Y05 process coffee from producer Diego Bermudez in Colombia. This coffee is paired with the artwork "Take your Seat" by Fleur Yearsley.

 

PRODUCER: Diego Bermudez

FARM : Villa Esperanza - Paraiso REGION : El Tambo, Cauca ALTITUDE  : 1700 MASL VARIETAL  : Castillo PROCESS  : Y05 Process

Diego Samuel, 39, born in Bolívar, Cauca - a grower turned mad scientist of flavour. For over 13 years, he’s dedicated his life to the pursuit of precision coffee craft - dissecting, decoding, and re-engineering what high-end specialty coffee can taste like. His approach? Equal parts science, obsession, and art. The results? Outrageously unique cups that push sensory boundaries.

At Villa Esperanza - Paraiso in El Tambo, Cauca, Diego and his close-knit family run their 27-hectare playground of experimentation, sitting at 1700 masl and planted with Castillo, Colombia, Caturra, and Geisha. What started as a traditional farm has evolved into a full-blown coffee innovation lab. They built their own cupping and roasting facility on-site - not just to taste coffee, but to engineer it. Every lot, every curve, every controlled chaos in fermentation is mapped, measured, and pushed to its limits.

Diego’s curiosity doesn’t rest. He’s a CQI Level 2 processor, a meticulous cupper, and a relentless tinkerer in microbial ecology. He’s learned how pH, temperature, and microorganisms can guide cup profiles like an orchestra - and his compositions have earned him a string of awards since 2015.

But what’s really wild is that many of these lots come from Castillo - a variety often underestimated. Yet under Diego’s process wizardry, it proves its critics wrong, revealing complexity and character few believed possible.

Y-05 PROCESS

This lot starts with precision harvesting - cherries plucked at the absolute peak of ripeness. They’re then ozone-cleaned and submerged in anaerobic fermentation tanks for 72 hours, fermenting in water, away from oxygen’s interference.

Next, the coffee is pulped and demucilaged. The leftover mucilage and pulp are taken to the 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. In the pilot plant, Diego cultivates specific microorganisms to create a flavour culture medium — a living, breathing essence of aroma and taste precursors. This is then reintegrated into the fermentation tanks for 36 hours, allowing the beans to absorb and fix these complex compounds under pressure.

• Please note due to the extremely limited availability of this coffee, we will be roasting once weekly. This may add a small delay to online orders. *

Produced by Diego Bermudez in El Tambo, Cauca, the Freak & Unique XIX - 'Take your Seat' represents a meticulous approach to coffee production in Colombia. This lot features the Castillo varietal, which is widely cultivated for its resilience and adaptability. What distinguishes this specific offering from Hundred House Coffee is the application of the Y05 process.

Advanced processing methods like the Y05 are designed to exert precise control over fermentation environments, often resulting in highly distinct and unconventional flavor profiles. While traditional washed coffees are known for their clean acidity, experimental techniques frequently push the boundaries of sensory expression, often requiring a reference to the flavor wheel to fully map the complex, non-traditional notes present in the cup. By focusing on controlled variables during the post-harvest stage, producers like Bermudez continue to redefine the potential of established varietals grown at 1700 masl.