ANA MUSTAFÁ

We are happy to deepen our relationship with La Real Expedición Botánica (La REB), Herbert Peñaloza, and Ana Mustafá with this release.

La REB is a collective of small coffee growers, who share knowledge and grow together through innovative processing techniques. Together, they remove the middlemen and do their own exporting and importing, allowing for greater transparency and quality control through the whole process. Through doing this extra work they also receive a greater share of the profits, allowing them to invest more into their people and farms.

Ana Mustafá along side our good friend Herbert Peñaloza, are integral to the operations of La REB. Both as producers and as operators; Ana is in charge of all the operations and Herbert is the head of R&D.

Ana comes from a long lineage of coffee growers starting when her grandfather came to Colombia from Palestine in the 1930s. He came empty handed but had a relative that was trading in fabrics and he started to do the same. After making some money, he was able to buy his first donkey, and then he saved until he was able to buy his first farm. He worked all the way up until he owned 6 different farms all in the small city of La Celia in the Risaralda region. He managed all these farms until he could not do the work anymore, then he passed them to Ana’s father.

After growing up watching her father grow and sell coffee, Ana felt she needed to continue his legacy. When she was ready, she inherited his farms in La Celia and ones he had bought in Pereira. Her focus for the farms has been to invest heavily in infrastructure and plant health. Creating higher cherry quality on the farm, along with higher yields, and efficiency.

This lot comes from her farm in Pereira, named Los Naranjos, which is planted completely with the Castillo variety. Castillo is known for its high yields and being notoriously hard to process. Many Castillos end up being low quality coffees. Ana through many years of experimentation and with the help of Herbert have created a process that highlights the unique flavor profile that Castillo can have. They call this process El Crucero (named after a crossroad in Pereira, where you can get high-end Zacapa and ostrich eggs from the supermarket), which is a fed-batch and lightly washed.

The fed-batch process looks a bit like this: first day, cherries get picked, depulped, and placed in fermentation tanks, then each day after this gets repeated, piling on top of the previous day’s cherries; after four days, they stop and move the cherries to a low heat mechanical dryer, to halt the fermentation, and start to dry the coffee. They do this for a few different reasons: first, it saves a lot of space because patio space is scarce and valuable, second, it is far more sustainable because there is no water usage or water waste, and third, it creates a layered fermentation adding complexity in the cup. After the drying is finished, it rests in parchment for 20 days before getting dry milled and ready to be shipped.

Farm details:

Farmer:          Ana Mustafá

Farm:            Los Naranjo

Region:         Pereira

Country:         Colombia

Altitude:        1600 meters

Process:          Fed-batch/lightly washed

Varietal:         Castillo

Flavor profile:

Taste:             Blueberry, raspberry, passionfruit, caramel, molasses, dark chocolate

Acidity:          Medium intensity/vibrant

Sweetness:    Medium intensity/jammy

Body:            Heavy/Syrupy