Colombia - Arturo Arango "Yirgacheffe" Natural

Floral // Ripe Cherries // Cacao Nibs

There's something quietly extraordinary about this coffee. It opens with a bloom of florals — delicate and perfumed — before giving way to the deep, jammy sweetness of ripe cherries and a finish that lingers with the bittersweet edge of cacao nibs. It's a cup that rewards attention, and one that's stayed with me.

It comes from El Paraiso, Arturo Arango's farm in Barcelona, Quindío — a region that sits at 1,300–1,450m, with volcanic ash soils and a climate that swings between 16 and 28°C. Arturo and his team work with the kind of precision and care that shows in every stage of the process, from selective hand-picking through to the meticulous sorting and fermentation protocols carried out at Cofinet's La Pradera processing centre.

About Yirgacheffe

The variety growing here is Ethiopian Heirloom — specifically a Yirgacheffe selection, native to the ancient coffee forests of Ethiopia where thousands of wild varieties have evolved over centuries without significant human intervention. These are the genetic foundations of coffee as we know it, and their complexity shows in the cup: floral, fruity, and distinctly their own.

Some seeds of this variety found their way to Huila, Colombia, where Luis Anibal Calderon spent years cultivating and studying the plant's behaviour. The cherries it produces are notably elongated — a morphological quirk that hints at mutation or environmental adaptation — and the flavour profiles it yields are among the most nuanced I've encountered from Colombia.

Processing

Only the ripest cherries are selectively hand-picked at El Paraiso, then hand-sorted and floated to remove any low-density, underripe or defective fruit. They're transported to La Pradera in GrainPro bags to preserve freshness, where they undergo a further float and sort before a 45-hour aerobic fermentation — a method that highlights the coffee's intrinsic character without masking it. The cherries are then dried on raised beds for 8–12 days, turned regularly for even airflow, and monitored to a target moisture content of 9.5–11%. Water used throughout the process is recycled and filtered through vetiver grass beds before release — a genuinely sustainable operation.

Origin: Barcelona, Quindío, Colombia
Producer: Arturo Arango
Farm: El Paraiso
Altitude: 1,300–1,450 m.a.s.l.
Varietal: Ethiopian Heirloom (Yirgacheffe)
Process: Aerobic Natural (45hr fermentation, 8–12 day raised bed dry)
Cupping Score: 89

Brewing

As a filter, this coffee is floral and fruit-forward — ripe cherry sweetness with a cacao nib depth that gives it real structure. As an espresso, it's rich and complex; add milk and those floral notes soften beautifully into something indulgent and deeply satisfying.