EL PUENTE NATURAL

TRACEABILITY:

FLAVOUR NOTES:

MANGO
ORANGE
PINEAPPLE

SCA Score: >86

GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION

Country: Colombia
Region: Pitalito, Huila
Altitude: 1.550 – 1.980 m.a.s.l

GROWING CHARACTERISTICS

Varieties: Caturra – Colombia – Castillo – Bourbon
Drying: Parabolic dryer
Processing: Natural

FARM INFORMATION

El Puente Natural is produced at the El Puente Mill…a processing facility, built in 2018, for the nearby farms. El Puente (meaning bridge) is named after the footbridge over the river near the new El Puente processing facility. This facility in the Palestina region of southern Huila processes coffee from small surrounding farms, of over one hundred families, who produce coffee on their farms and deliver it to El Puente, which is designed to handle larger volumes of coffee than the mills on individual farms can process.

El Puente is a pilot project that is supported by community investments in the sustainable development of rural areas.

Given that the economic factor for the producing families near El Puente could have an added value in their coffees, since, from the beginning, those producers that have one or two hectares, do not have a pulping or drying mill on their farms and have to sell their wet coffee. It is there where the mill receives the coffee from the neighbouring producers and pay them at a premium price, even without having the coffee processed. This social impact helps significantly to motivate the coffee farmers to cultivate good quality coffee and how important it is to maintain the harvest very well.
All the processes are overlooked and directed by the famous Elkin Guzman himself.

EL PUENTE PROCESS

The coffees that arrive at the El Puente Mill are then either processed as Honey, Natural or washed. The coffee is measured in Brix degrees in order to determine the process to be carried out and to carry out the fermentation. In this case, the coffee from El Puente is Naturally processed. When the coffee arrives at the coffee processing plant, El Puente proceeds to float the coffee in order to eliminate impurities, if in the course they observe that the Brix degrees are low, it is left to ferment for 12 to 24 hours in the sacks and then taken directly to the sun. If the cherries have a good Brix degree content it goes immediately to the sun as the first step in the drying process.