Our second to last chiroso from Urrao of this harvest season has finally arrived, as well as the final of 3 washed geshas from Nariño. This marks the combined efforts of our last year of growth both in scale and in knowledge, deeper connection and passion. Being able to source 8+ very interesting coffees each month is an insane challenge that normally takes a full team, which we are currently accomplishing with only 2 people. Today, we're viewing this release as a bit of a victory lap with some extremely impressive coffees from well known farmers. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do, and I hope that all you shoeheads keep doing it for the love of the game. Thanks for all you're support and trust so far, many more bangers to come <3
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Colombian Sergio Caro Chiroso Washed:
In 2025, at just 26 years old, Sergio Caro won the Tierra de Diversidad competition in Colombia with his very first harvest. He started his coffee career learning in the Urrao producers co-operative championed by Unblended's team alongside producers like Viktor Pineda and Daniel Hernandez, who's coffees we've recently featured as intensely floral and fruited examples of the Chiroso production happening there. Sergio's farm Los Pinos sits at a soaring 2,400masl, providing an extremely unique microclimate with some of the highest growing altitudes in all of Colombia. At just half a hectare with only 4 employees, Sergio's operation is very tight-knit, well controlled, and highly quality focused, producing just under 1,000kg for the lot that ended up winning the Tierra De Diversidad competition. Due to the high elevation, the fermentation times used here are quite long, with a total of 72 hours held in cherry underwater still somehow yielding quite a clean cup as the end result. For drying, Los Pinos utilizes raised and shaded beds for optimal stability and slow drying, taking 2-3 weeks to reach their final moisture content targets. In the cup, we find an explosive process-related mixed berry tone reminiscent of blue-raspberry candy with a white tealike texture that carries with it tons of delicate florals. This coffee is quite flexible under both of our QC brewing methods, the washed and natural recipes, with the washed recipe highlighting the incredible fruited character, and the natural recipe focusing deeply on the florality, which presents as jasmine and bergamot.
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Colombia Finca Los Angeles Gesha Washed:
José Ignacio Gómez López began planting specialty coffee in the 90s, one of the first in the surrounding area of Buesaco to do so. Finca Los Angeles sits at over 2,000masl and covers roughly 9 hectares, where José also plants various fruit trees and plantains for shade, allowing the coffee cherries to ripen more slowly and promote nitrogen fixing in the soil. Finca Los Angeles is home to several coffee varieties including gesha, pink bourbon, and papayo. Processing for this washed gesha lot was extremely tightly controlled and documented, and includes an unusual step that we have begun to see a bit more of this year. Coffees are first floated and sorted for defects before undergoing a 24hr anaerobic held in cherry step, then after the mucilage is removed and the beans are fully washed, they are left dry, without water in sealed tanks for 72 hours as a "bulk" or "spontaneous" fermentation. Both Alo's moonshadow washed process and Durley Sanchez's pink bourbon also utilized this step, and we've found across all 3 coffees this creates an intensely unique and punchy floral sweetness, as well as deepened complexity compared to standard washed processes. Last year we sourced Finca Los Angeles's washed gesha for an exclusive collab with Airworks Coffee and were absolutely blown away by the clarity and complexity the green had to offer. This year's harvest is no different, and of the 3 Narino geshas we've had recently this one is hitting the hardest on the QC bench for us. In the cup, we experienced an insane transformation from hot to cold here, starting off with loud notes of honeycrisp apple, blood orange, and honeysuckle before cooling into a predominantly floral and clean cup that consisted of apricot, orange blossom, and jasmine, much like some washed Ethiopians we've had.
