Colombia Finca Los Angeles Gesha Washed

Region: Narino, Colombia

Producer: Jose Ignacio Gomez Lopez // Finca Los Angeles 

Varietal: Gesha

Process: Washed

Tasting notes: honeycrisp apple, blood orange, honeysuckle

Producer info and cup notes: 

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.