New Colombian Coffee "Astrid Medina #10"
This summer marks three years since Fuglen Coffee Roasters started.
Over the past three years, we have delivered more than 50 types of single origin coffee to everyone.
For us roasters, it is very important to think about how to roast the coffee beans we purchase and how to bring out their potential. You have to face the coffee constantly by repeating trial and error.
In the same way, thinking about what kind of coffee to buy and where to buy it from is also a big job of the roaster.
I feel that the sharing of knowledge and information has progressed and it has become easier to access high-quality coffee than before, but what to choose among them is a very important job.
I can imagine the face of the producer, I know how the coffee is grown and refined.
It is a major premise that the taste is delicious, but it has become an important point whether we can imagine more than that.
This is my first purchase of Astrid Medina, but it's the coffee I've been wanting to deliver ever since I visited Colombia last year.
FLAVOR PROFILE:
Flavors of fresh oranges and sweetness of berries.
FARM: FINCA BUENAVISTA
FARMER: ASTRID MEDINA
REGION: GAITANIA, TOLIMA
COUNTRY: COLOMBIA
ALTITUDE: 1850 MASL
VARIETIES : CATURRA
CROP YEAR: 2016
Astrid Medina is named after the woman who produces this coffee.
Her name is Astrid Medina Pereira. In Gaitania, the southern part of Tolima Province, which boasts the third largest coffee production scale in Colombia, he operates Finca Buenavista (Buenavista farm), which he inherited from his father, and produces coffee.
Starting with winning the Cup of Excellence in 2015, it is also a producer that has attracted the attention of coffee buyers around the world.
Gaitania, where her farm is located, is a remote area. For many years, few coffee buyers visited due to poor access to transportation due to poor infrastructure such as roads, and a long period of conflict between government forces and guerrillas.
As a result, this area has not received much attention in terms of coffee production. It's getting a lot of attention.
The size of the farm is about 15 hectares, of which 10 hectares are used for coffee cultivation.
Astrid Medina's family and her husband Raul's family also work at the Buena Vista plantation, and almost all operations are carried out by the family. Especially during the harvest season, when the family gathers and cooperates, growing coffee may be more like a family event than just a job for her and her family.
Here, the coffee cherries are carefully hand-picked, fermented for 12-16 hours, and sorted into good and bad quality coffee. Many people are involved in each process.
People who work as pickers have to work for very modest wages, and it's the same here at Finca Buenavista. It is really hard and necessary to get them to work continuously and understand what kind of work is necessary to maintain high quality.
Some pickers have their livelihoods at stake, so they move from one farm to another without warning because of wages rather than quality. However, without the necessary number of workers, the coffee cherries cannot be picked at the right time and the quality of the harvested cherries will suffer.
In order to avoid such troubles, they do their best to understand each other with the pickers.
Astrid and her husband Raul share a common goal and philosophy for making good coffee, as if there is even one mistake in all the processes from harvesting to refining, it is impossible to make really good quality coffee. I believe that it is important to communicate proactively.
After sorting, the coffee washed with clean water is transferred to the drying bed and dried. The Tolima drying process takes place mainly on a small patio or on a parabolic airy drying bed. The drying bed that Astirid has has good rain protection and ventilation, so it seems that there is nothing to complain about.
If the coffee beans cannot be dried to a certain moisture content for a specified period of time during this drying process, the quality will be greatly affected. If the moisture cannot be removed to the specified amount, it may not be possible to ship the product to the corporative.
It is unavoidable that coffee cultivation and refining are affected by the weather, but proper investment in such equipment will lead to maintaining and controlling quality above a certain level.
Astrid has a strong passion for coffee production and is always open to new ideas, information and technology. At the same time, I admire her strength in not forgetting to take care of her partner and children.
The folks at Nordic Approach also say that when they first met her and her husband, Raul, they immediately knew they were producers of great coffee.
Coffee made with passion, carefully and rigorously is reflected in the quality of the cup. The coffee that I received from her is really wonderful with its vivid acidity reminiscent of fresh fruit, moist texture and sweetness like jam.
I couldn't buy a lot of it, but please try it once.
