Colombia El Estoraque Honey

Yeison Libardo López comes from a long line of coffee growers. He is continuing the legacy of the generations before him on his farm, El Estoraque, in the town of Buesaco, Nariño. Perched atop a ridge of the Colombian Andes in the storied state of Nariño, Buesaco is a specialty coffee hub that is renowned for its quality. The combination of high altitude (averaging 2,000 meters), volcanic soils, and a climate of warm days, cool nights, and distinct rainy and dry seasons, creates the ideal conditions for growing coffee. With the right knowledge and infrastructure, coffee producers like Don Yeison can capitalize on these natural conditions, preparing lots that highlight the best of what Buesaco's terroir has to offer.

Diverging from the tradition of washed coffees, this lot is a honey process. After the ripe cherries were harvested, the coffee was de-pulped just enough to remove the skin while still leaving some of the pulpy fruit in tact. From there, the coffee was fermented anaerobically for an extended period of time, and washed just once before being transferred to covered, raised drying beds. The extended fermentation combined with the presence of the fruit pulp imparts a tangy sweetness to the coffee while still presenting a cup with balance and clarity.

Produced by Yeison Libardo López in the Buesaco region of Nariño, Colombia, the Colombia El Estoraque Honey represents a meticulous approach to cultivation at 2000 masl. This lot is offered by Intelligentsia Coffee, a roaster known for its commitment to direct trade relationships. The coffee undergoes a honey process, a technique that sits between washed and natural methods by leaving a portion of the fruit’s mucilage on the bean during drying. You can learn more about how this impacts the final cup profile in our processing methods explainer.

Coffees from Colombia · Buesaco, Nariño are frequently celebrated for their vibrant acidity and complex sweetness. When evaluating the nuances of a honey-processed coffee, it is often helpful to reference the flavor wheel to identify the specific fruit or sugar-browning characteristics that emerge from the unique interaction between the bean and its residual fruit sugars during the drying phase.