Edwin Noreña has dedicated 20 years of his life so far to producing coffee, out of which 10 have been focused on studying and experimenting with specialty coffee. And it shows. Thanks to the high quality and distinctive processing methods, Edwin’s coffees have been part of contests for many years, all over the world.

Edwin is not only a coffee farmer. In addition, he holds positions as an international coffee processing consultant, Q-grader, Q processing expert, and head judge for the Colombian Cup of Excellence competition. Moreover, he also collects and processes coffee from other smallholder farmers around.

Edwin Noreña has developed a different processing technique for each cup profile he developed at Finca Campo Hermoso. All profiles we are importing this season, follow the same process and include 2 fermentations and an infusion technique. When telling us about how and why he started his process, he said he was inspired by the craft beer industry. In short, he adds certain compounds to the fermentation tanks (such as different types of hops or dehydrated fruits) that that will generate additional flavours. The result is their distinctive profiles.

Edwin chooses only cherries above 23 degrees Brix and places them in 30kg plastic bags for 24h. The initial fermentation has already started and continues with a carbonic maceration with mosto (the juice made by compressing coffee cherries) for 72h in a big tank. The generated liquid that he collects through a valve is used for his infusion process. After de-pulping, he moves the cherries to smaller tanks with the liquid and other additional compounds, such as:

Mosto
Dehydrated fruits
Fruit juice
Mosto from grapes
The coffee is then sun-dried on African beds for 25 days until the humidity reaches 10.5%. Finally, the coffee undergoes humidity stabilization for 8 days inside a warehouse and is then stored in grain pro bags.