The Bermudez Family (Finca El Paraiso)

Description

Releases August 3rd 10am EST

Tasting Like: Lychee Candy, Apricot Jam, Jasmine, Toasted Osmanthus Tea, Refreshing, Complex, Soft Elegant Tea Body, Tasteful + Friendly

Farm: Finca El Paraiso
Producers: The Bermudez Family
Variety: Castillo
Process: Duel Stage Anaerobic Fermentation + Duel Soft Thermal Shocks
Origin: Cauca, Colombia
Altitude: 1990masl

This coffee is a beloved offering from Finca El Paraíso, yet seldom gets mentioned in lychee-forward coffee conversations likely due to its rich layered nature. It's hardly lychee forward - which at your first read maybe seems like a let down, rather it's the coffee's greatest strength. There's crazy rich and nuanced flavors here. A super buttery sweet toasted osmanthus oolong tea leads us down a wild path of jasmine bud florality and of course soft lychee candies. It's sweet, with soft and kind acidity making this coffee incredibly approachable and easy to love by all enthusiast levels. It's not overly ferment-y at all and definitely not a Nordic-level of cleanliness. It's sort of the perfect marriage of advanced processing and excellent crop practice from the Bermudez family - all of which Finca El Paraíso has been known and beloved for.
Letty next?

In case you're just getting into the industry, here's a brief note on Finca El Paraíso:

The farm sits in, Cauca, and was established in 2008 as a simple family business, not as the juggernaut it is today. A shift happened around 2015 when Diego Bermudez started entering regional and national competitions and, more importantly, started treating fermentation as something you could actually measure and control rather than something that just happens to green coffee. He built the whole thing out under an arm he called INDESTEC - short for Innovation and Technological Development for Agriculture - which tells you exactly how he viewed it. The farm reads more like a lab than a farm: ozone sterilization of cherries before anything begins, stainless steel tanks with CO2 displacing removing oxygen, fermentation held at a controlled temp, real-time pH Brix(sweetness level) monitoring, and an in-house library of isolated microorganisms selected for specific sensory outcomes. Diego even built his own condensation-based ecological dryers because he didn't like what conventional drying was doing to his tests. He was among the very first people in Colombia to deliberately inoculate coffee fermentations with selected yeasts, which is now standard practice across half the country's experimental lots. That's his fingerprint whether they've gotten credit for it or not. Diego himself exited the farm in late 2024, but he left Finca El Paraíso with a set of protocols and passion projects for his family to continue, and this lot is the family executing legacy full strength and beyond. It's a good reminder that the best farms are often entire families, not just one producer.

Recommended Music to accompany brewing: Clouds - Pastel Ghost
Includes QR code to applicable Tasting Guide™

Text from Promethium Coffee's listing.