Colombia Jairo Arcila Lulo Honey - Filter Roast

COUNTRY - Colombia
REGION - Armenia, Quindio
ALTITUDE - 1450 - 1500 M.A.S.L
VARIETAL - Castillo
PROCESSING METHOD - Lulo Fermented Honey

JAIRO ARCILA
Jairo Arcila is a third-generation coffee grower from Quindio, Colombia. He is married to Luz Helena Salazar and they have two children together, Carlos and Felipe Arcila, who are the co-founders of Cofinet.
Jairo’s first job was at Colombia’s second-largest exporter, working as their Mill Manager for over 40 years until his retirement in 2019.
Jairo bought his first coffee farm, Finca La Esmeralda, in 1987 and this is where he planted his first Caturra lot. He was fortunate enough to earn money by producing coffee on his farm in addition to working full time. Using his savings, Jairo slowly managed to purchase five additional farms. After Esmeralda came Villarazo, Mazatlan, Santa Monica, Maracay and then Buenos Aires.
Now, during the harvest period, Jairo can provide
jobs to the locals generating an economic impact in the
community. He received great insight and expertise from his sons’ in the picking, sorting, and processing of his coffees. This insight has empowered Jairo and given him the tools needed to showcase fantastic coffees with amazing profiles from the region.

CO - FERMENTED HONEY
When the coffee cherries reach the peak of ripeness, they are hand picked. The coffee in then exposed to a dry anaerobic fermentation period of 72 hours with the pulp on ( oxygen free environment with no added water). During this fermentation stage, Lulo fruit were added. The cherries were then pulped and placed to dry on
raised beds until ideal moisture content was achieved.

CASTILLO
Developed over five generations, Castillo is the most common coffee variety grown in Colombia.
Carefully created for its resistance to leaf rust, Castillo is a hybrid variety that now makes up 40% of Colombia’s coffee crops. It is a “dwarfed” tree that can be planted in high density, resulting in generous crop yields.
That being said, some in the specialty coffee sector consider Castillo to be lower quality than other varieties as it shares a genetic heritage with robusta beans.
Before Castillo was introduced, Caturra was the most widely found coffee variety in Colombia. However, Caturra plants are highly susceptible to coffee leaf rust, also known as la Roya. Coffee leaf rust prevents plants from photosynthesising, which can quickly kill the entire tree and may reduce crop yield by up to 70% in severe cases.
In 1938, Colombia established the National Coffee Research Centre called Cenicafé. Researchers worked to improve the genetics in Colombian coffee to help with productivity and disease resistance in crops.
Named after researcher Jamie Castillo, the Castillo coffee variety was released for production in 2005. It is the result of the successful hybridisation of Caturra with the Timor Hybrid.
So far, seven additional cultivars have been developed from Castillo, each trying to retain the cup quality of Cattura and the disease resistance from the Timor Hybrid.