Colombia Aroma Nativo Hydro Natural Papayo [Roasted]

Born and raised in the wine-growing highlands of his home country Portugal, Luis Marcelino has always had an innate affinity and connection for natural landscapes, a sense of wonder of the bounties of the land and an inexhaustible curiosity about his role in contributing to that picture. This yearning, his love for drinking specialty coffee and his wife’s ties in Colombia led him to explore opportunities for a fresh start towards what he believed would be a more fulfilling life. 

There, Aroma Nativo was born. A Processing hub based in Huila and a trading company headquartered in Paris, France, Luis is one of the most exciting new experimental processors in Colombia. In 2022, he implemented the Veci Project having realized the extent to which purposeful processing could contribute to improving coffee quality and enable coffee farmers to enjoy a better quality of life with higher returns for their harvest. He does this by providing a viable alternative for coffee farmers with commendable agronomic practices to receive advance payments which aids cash flow while earning a premium for high quality cherries suitable for expressing exciting profiles.

This variety is commonly named Papaya by the farmers in the south of Hula, due to its shape resembling like a Papayo. Some other farmers also call them Ombligon (belly button in Spanish) as it also looks like a cherry with a belly. Latest research has revealed it is indeed an Ethiopian Landrace.

1369kg of the ripest Papayo cherries were used to produce this unique lot. It first passed through an anaerobic stage in sealed barrels, then dried for a few days and returned to the fermentation tanks for a rehydration of the cherries with saccharomyces cerevisiae - commonly known as baker’s yeast. After this, the coffee is returned to the parabolic sun dryer for 18 days before being put in a temperature controlled room for 3 months as the coffee stabilised.