Sparkle Plenty | Colombia | La Divisa Java Natural

This is our second coffee from Diofanor Ruiz. The first was a natural Papayo that became a favorite around the roastery, so when his next harvest landed on the cupping table we didn't need much convincing. This lot is a first for him- he planted Java at La Divisa in 2022, using seeds shared by his importing partner Cofinet, tended the trees for three years, and this season harvested the first cherries. This is that first harvest.

Java is rare in Colombia. Genetic fingerprinting has shown it to be a selection from an Ethiopian landrace population called Abyssinia. It traveled to Indonesia, where it took the name that stuck, reached Costa Rica in 1991, and arrived in Colombia in 2008. It cups similar to Gesha and the trees are hardier, tolerant to leaf rust and resistant to Coffee Berry Disease, which makes it a practical choice for the smallholder farmers Cofinet works with and the reason they have been sharing seeds with their best producers.

Diofanor was born into a coffee-farming family and worked the land from boyhood. He became a certified coffee farmer in 2003 and bought La Divisa in 2005, the same year he tasted his own coffee for the first time and left conventional farming behind for quality-focused practices. La Divisa sits between 1,600 and 2,000 meters in Buenavista, fourteen hectares of coffee planted alongside bananas, mandarins, guava, oranges, and native shade species like Guamo, Guayacanes, and Tigua. He has worked with Cofinet since 2017 and is one of their Star Producers.

The cherries were selectively hand-picked, sorted and floated to remove anything underripe or low-density, and fermented whole for forty-five hours following Cofinet's protocol. Diofanor moved them to parabolic dryers, spread them in thin layers, and turned them by hand over ten to fifteen days of slow drying, down to a moisture content between 9.5 and 11 percent. Slow drying is what lets the fruit work its way through the bean.

Mango, grape Starburst, and lychee. We recommend an Origami pour-over at a twenty-two-gram dose.

Forty-eight kilograms total, about 142 bags for sale. Ten-ounce bags only.

Produced by Diofanor Ruiz in the Buenavista region of Colombia, the Sparkle Plenty lot showcases the distinct potential of the Java varietal. This specific offering from Mudhouse Coffee Roasters is processed using the natural method, a technique where the coffee cherry remains intact while drying, often allowing the bean to absorb sugars and complex acids from the fruit pulp. While natural-processed coffees are frequently noted for their heavier body and pronounced fruit-forward profiles, this particular selection highlights vibrant notes of mango, grape Starburst, and lychee. When evaluating such complex profiles, enthusiasts often refer to the flavor wheel to better categorize the interplay between the inherent characteristics of the Java plant and the influence of the drying process. Grown at an elevation of 1600-2000 masl, this coffee represents a meticulous approach to post-harvest handling in one of Colombia’s most promising coffee-producing landscapes.