Colombia Cauca El Paraiso Introduction to Double Anaerobic Bourbon

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombia Cauca El Paraiso Anaerobic Natural Bourbon

Colombia Cauca El Paraiso

Colombia Cauca El Paraiso

Region: Cauca

Altitude: 2050 meters

Processing Method: Anaerobic Natural

Grade: SUPREMO

Variety: Bourbon

Colombia Cauca

Colombia is currently the world's third-largest coffee producer, behind only Brazil and Vietnam. Commercial cultivation began in the 1830s, and by the 20th century coffee had become the country's largest agricultural export. Colombia's mountainous terrain and diverse tropical microclimates provide ideal growing conditions, and with 75% of total production sold abroad, coffee is the country's most important source of foreign exchange.

The main producing regions include Huila (San Augustin), Nariño, Tolima, Popayán (Cauca), Valle del Cauca, Meta, Antioquia (Medellín), Magdalena (Sierra Nevada), Boyacá, and Santander (Bucaramanga).

Cauca is a Colombian origin-certified region with an average altitude of 1,758 meters, reaching 2,100 meters at its highest points. Its topography, rainfall, temperature, and volcanic soil make it a fine place to grow coffee. About 80% of the terrain is mountainous, and the eastern and central areas form parallel ranges that are part of the Andes; the central system includes two major volcanoes, Sotara and Petacas. Like other southwestern producing regions, Cauca has a distinct monomodal rainfall pattern, with a dry season mainly from August to September. The rainy season that follows sets off a concentrated flowering, and the harvest follows in a concentrated wave the next year.

El Paraiso Farm

Finca El Paraiso is a coffee farm that Diego Samuel began working in 2008. It started as a small 2.5-hectare family farm, and the owner reinvested the surplus from each harvest into coffee research, continually exploring how to produce better specialty flavors.

In 2015 he entered local regional competitions for the first time and took first place. The win brought industry recognition and pushed him to go further with specialty coffee.

Through his company Indestec (Innovación y Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Caficultura), Diego developed new techniques to improve and stabilize coffee quality. He says he likes stepping out of his comfort zone because it keeps improving his work.

El Paraiso currently grows mainly Bourbon, Laurina, Gesha, and Castillo, with plans to experiment with more varieties.

Processing Method: Anaerobic Natural

Anaerobic fermentation has become one of the most popular post-harvest methods in recent years. It usually means placing coffee cherries in sealed containers or fermentation tanks to ferment in water, with different microorganisms driving the process to create distinctive flavors. Once fermentation is complete, the cherries are dried in the sun.

Characteristics of Anaerobic Fermentation Processing

Stainless steel containers, which do not absorb flavors from previous lots, are used to hold the cherries, which keeps the flavors cleaner.

A sealed environment makes the various factors easier to control, so each batch comes out more consistent and the aromatic compounds are less likely to volatilize.

Fermenting without oxygen produces smoother flavors and often brings cheese and cream aromas.

Coffee processed this way typically has a fuller body and wine-like aromas.

Bourbon Variety

This coffee is of the Bourbon variety.

Bourbon is a branch of the Arabica species, a variant of early Typica that changed from a slender, pointed bean to a round one after reaching Yemen. In 1715, after France introduced round Yemen Mocha beans to Bourbon Island off the east coast of Africa—renamed Réunion after the French Revolution—the variety took the island's name. Bourbon round beans reached Brazil and Central and South America in 1727, and in 1732 Britain introduced Yemen Mocha to St. Helena Island, the place where Napoleon was later imprisoned, again using the Bourbon round bean. Bourbon is a consistent winner in American specialty coffee cupping competitions.

The green beans show noticeably uneven color and smell faintly of fermentation and grass.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you enjoy a Bourbon-forward coffee but want something more restrained than an anaerobic natural, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is an excellent counterpoint. Cerrado is one of Brazil's best-known coffee regions, and the Red Bourbon grown there is one of South America's classic varieties. Roasted to medium, it delivers concentrated cream-and-peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut aromas with a rounded body, low acidity, and a gentle bitter finish. It is versatile enough for pour-over as well as a moka pot, an espresso SOE, a siphon, or a French press.

For a rarer Brazilian variety, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon comes from Mogiana near South Minas, where rich red volcanic soil feeds the fruit and builds a full aroma. Yellow Bourbon is a natural mutation of Red Bourbon, and its fruit character is cleaner. Brewed by pour-over, moka pot, or a home espresso machine, it shows a sugarcane freshness that other origins rarely deliver, along with fruit and chocolate notes.

Brazilian coffee also anchors many espresso recipes precisely because it is low in acidity and easy to balance. The Brazilian component in FrontStreet Coffee's espresso blends—the rich and oily Classic Blend, the nut-forward Specialty Blend, the balanced Black Cocoa Blend favored by many baristas, and FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend built for cafés—supplies chocolate and cream aromas plus a soft sweet-sour-bitter profile. That balance makes extraction more stable, which is exactly what a Barista chasing consistency wants.