Ildefonso Córdoba Colombia

BRIGHT, FRUITY, CONCENTRATED.

Producer: Ildefonso Córdoba
Location: Bruselas, Huila, Colombia
Elevation: 1800 meters
Variety: Pink Bourbon 
Process: Fully Washed, multi-layered fermentation.

Ildefonso currently lives in the town of Bruselas, where his nephew helps and lives with his family at the farm. Ildefonso recently renovated more than 4,000 San Bernardo trees with less-common varieties, including pink bourbon, yellow caturra, yellow bourbon, and bourbon aji. He has become a seed guru with his germinator, distributing seeds to other community members. Though he comes from a coffee-producing family, he started his farm from scratch and has managed to produce great quality coffee 13 years into his endeavor.

Don Ildefonso is a member of the Los Guácharos group, which is a cohort of independent, quality-focused small producers in Bruselas, Southern Huila. The group is collectively converting to organic agriculture, making their own fertilizers and fungicides, and installing complex water filtration systems that use gravity, stones, and sand to remove all mucilage residues from wastewater to avoid contaminating water systems.

Many of the producers from Los Guácharos planted pink bourbon plants several years ago and are now seeing strong lots from those initial seedlings. Pink bourbon trees come from seeds that are a hybrid of red and yellow bourbon, and the cherries turn a pinkish-orange when they ripen. Many producers have reported that pink bourbon coffees are more resistant to rust than other varietals, have a high yield, don’t require much fertilizer, and the trees can grow to varying heights—some taller, and some shorter—referred to as porte alto and porte bajo. Ildefonso purchased some seeds in town and has been propagating them to share with other members of the group.

Ildefonso is meticulous about his processing. On day one, he picks cherries (pink bourbons are difficult to pick at peak ripeness because their color can make the cherries seem unripe). He leaves the coffee in cherry for 60 hours in sealed plastic bags. Because his pink bourbon lot is on the smaller side, he’s able to pick most of it in one day. He floats the cherries to remove the over- and under-ripe cherries, then de-pulps them, using a screen to further remove stray pulp that can make it into the tank and ensure homogenous fermentation. He ferments coffee in sealed plastic barrels with one-way valves for off-gassing, monitoring the fermentation carefully. Each lot ferments differently, so he doesn’t rely on specific hours, though it can be close to 70 hours. He washes the coffee once and then takes it down to his drying deck.