Colombia Huila Pink Bourbon

PROCESS: Washed
ROAST: Medium-Light
VARIETY: Pink Bourbon
ELEVATION: 1,400-2,000 meters
BODY: Round
NOTES: Cooked pear, caramel, and fresh orange flavors with tangy acidity and syrupy
sweetness

Cultivated from hybridization of Red and Yellow Bourbon, Pink Bourbon variety is very rare, but the producers say it is quite resistant to rust. Pink and Orange Bourbons are very difficult to produce with consistency. The recessive genes leading to the expression of these colors are easily thwarted by the presence of yellow and red genes in a given pollen grain. A carefully isolated and contained lot can do quite well and preserve the unique color and character of this variety, though this is quite hard to find.

Colombia is best-known for its Washed coffees. While the processing details might vary slightly from farm to farm or by association, generally the coffee is picked ripe and depulped the same day, then given an open-air fermentation in tanks or buckets for anywhere between 12–36 hours. The coffee is washed clean of its mucilage before being dried either on patios, in parabolic dryers, solar driers, or mechanically. Some Washed coffees in Colombia are mechanically demucilaged.