Product Information - Colombia Jairo Arcila

Finca Santa Monica Buenos Aires by Jairo Arcila

Origin : Armenia, Quindio, Colombia
Varietal : Castillo 
Process : Natural - White Wine Fermentation(WWF)
Altitude : 1400masl - 1550masl 
Harvest : April - July

Quindío is a department of Colombia. It is in the western central region of the country, crossed by the Andes mountains. Its capital is Armenia. It is famous for the quality of the coffee plantations, colorful architecture, benign weather, variety of hotel accommodations and tourist landmarks. What has been recently happening among the coffee farmers in Quindío is plenty of new experiments on processing methods branched out from natural process or other fermentation methods.

Santa Monica, one of Jairo Arcila's farms is not an exception. After he took over the Finca Santa Monica, he replanted trees for Costa Rica-95, and Castillo, highly resistant against coffee leaf rust.

The terroir of the lot in Santa Monica is more than excellent for coffee growing not only due to the benign weather in Quindio, but also annual rainfall between 1900 mm - 2200 mm, the soil consisting of volcanic ashes, and the altitude from 1400 masl - 1550 masl that are essential for the cherries to generate higher sugar level.

Jairo Arcila is a third generation coffee grower in Quindio, Colombia. Married to Luz Helena Salazar they had two children together: Carlos and Felipe Arcila, the co-founders of Cofinet. Jairo’s first job was at Colombia’s second-largest exporter Racafe as their Mill Manager. And continued to work there for over 40 years until his retirement in 2019.

Jairo bought his first coffee farm, Finca La Esmeralda in 1987, where he planted his first Caturra lot. He was fortunate enough to earn money by producing coffee while also working full time with Racafe. Using his savings Jairo slowly managed to purchase five additional farms. First Villarazo, then Mazatlan, Santa Monica, Maracay and Buenos Aires.

Coffee production was incredibly profitable until 2005, when Jairo noticed a downturn and began converting his farms to grow avocado, banana, plantain, and oranges. With the rise of specialty coffee, Jairo has decided to give growing coffee another chance.

In 2014, Jairo leased his brother’s farm, Finca Castellon to plant gesha trees. Becoming one of two farmers to grow the variety in the region at the time. After the success of his Gesha after the first harvest, Jairo decided to plant more exotic varieties like Pink Bourbon and Tabi at his farm Finca Villarazo. And has recently planted 3000 Java trees.

He has planted native tree species in Santa Monica, Castellon and Bueno Aires, which creates shade, better soil quality and protection for Geshas, Tabis and Javas planted at altitudes below 1500 masl.

Jairo Arcila has been a part of Cofinet from the very beginning. Listening to his sons’ expertise in picking practices, sorting and processing of coffee cherries. He has been able to showcase fantastic coffees with amazing profiles of the region, through alternative processing. He has 50 people working for him during harvest season.

White wine fermentation, this processing method sounds interesting; however in fact, wine is not involved in this process at all. The cherries undergo what is written during the expanded natural process below. Only the reason why white wine fermentation is named on this process is because it gives some profiles of dry white wine, 'Chardonnay' according to Cofinet. But it is definitely not a common natural process as it has been fermented in an anaerobic environment.

The whole idea of this process came from when Jairo was sharing coffee experiences back in 2016. He realised that the sugar levels of coffee can vary by each different method during fermentation, he attempts and plans plenty of different fermentation methods since then. White Wine Fermentation is one of it.

At Santa Monica, this coffee is placed on raised beds until moisture content reaches 20% after 30 hours of dry anaerobic fermentation. Then the coffee is kept in  Grainpro bags for 80 hours(at this stage, fermentation is driven by natural yeast), and later it is dried on raised beds again achieving 10.5% moisture content.

This coffee is nothing like experimented powering coffee out there. We find this coffee very Colombian coffee in our heads but as an upgraded and very refined version. We supposed that it was washed coffee!

It is a light roast; however, it presents an appearance of medium roast as the green itself already has almost amber-like colours. The intensity of the brewed coffee would not be such a challenge to even non-coffee drinkers.

We are particularly happy to finally work with Cofinet, and their very own legendary supporter Jairo Arcila. Luckily, we were able to meet Jairo Arcila in 2019, he is very down to earth, and very good individual.

• (Often) Its acidity can be developed within the range of complex, multi-dimensional malic acid. It is refined, crispy, bright, juicy and vibrant.
• (Often) Distinct floral notes such as lilac / violet / musk / dried rose petal is easily found
• (Always) Very gentle caramel / honeycomb(Hokey Pokey)-like sweetness backs up the bright acidity, and balances the tastes
• (Always) Lilac / violet / potpourri finish lasts long 
• (Sometimes) It can be developed within the range of caramelised citrus-related notes such as dried yellow mango / stewed mango / banana / pineapple juice
• (Sometimes) Subtle hints of red apple / sweet cherry / pink guava can be sensed
• (Often) The body is medium, juicy, very smooth, and thick but it can vary depending on different extractions

Also we have found this coffee consistently lilac, crispy, bright, and caramel during our production cupping & tasting with plenty of various brewing methods, so most of you are likely to get those as well.

It is roasted for both filter coffee and espresso, particularly the best on pour-over tools with the rough reference recipe as below.
To ensure solid complexity in the cups, we highly recommend finer grind size than usual grinder setting for pour-over.

• Brewing ratio : 1(coffee) to 16.5 - 17(brewing water)
• Brewing time : around 02:40 to extract the most pleasant sugar level of this coffee.
• Brewing water temperature : 93 degrees Celsius water.

It is also very good with immersion methods such as Clever or Plunger.

• Brewing ratio : 1(coffee) to 16(brewing water).
• Brewing time : 4 to 5 minutes (coarse grind size).
• Brewing water temperature : over 95 degrees Celsius water.

Try this reference recipe on an espresso machine, then start dialing in accordingly if needed.

• 19g dose in 20g basket
• Brewing time 23 seconds(on EK-43)
• 44g to 46g out
• Brewing water temperature : 94 degrees Celsius water.