About This Coffee
A coffee from a friend, who also happens to be one the best producers in the world. Meet Paola Trujillo (again)! Paola Trujillo grew up on her father's farm in Caldono, Cauca, a region of Colombia that her family has been tending for over four decades. Her father, Don Carlos, has spent a lifetime cultivating the land with care and intention, guided by a deep commitment to sustainable farming. Paola grew up watching him, learning from him, and somewhere along the way she found her own place in the work, not just as a farmer's daughter, but as someone with a real gift for what happens to coffee after it leaves the tree.
This past June, we got to spend the weekend in Denver for the US Barista Championship supporting and coaching our friend Juan Diaz from Know Where Coffee. As part of his team, he also brought along Paola Trujillo as he was using her coffee for the competition. Spending time with her, we were struck immediately by how she talks about all of this. She's not chasing recognition for herself. What drives her is the chance to show the world what her father has built. The care he brought to every harvest, the integrity he put into the land. That kind of love for family has a way of ending up in the cup.
This coffee is a Wush Wush, a rare Colombian variety believed to trace its roots back to Ethiopia. It's uncommon to find it at all, and rarer still to find it grown and processed with this much attention. Paola oversaw every step of what's called carbonic maceration, where cherries were fermented in a controlled, CO2-rich environment before being washed, a method that requires real precision to execute well. After harvest, the cherries went through 24 hours of open-air fermentation, then spent 50 hours sealed in bags with CO2 introduced into the environment, then were pulped, gently washed, and laid out on raised beds to dry slowly and evenly.
What you get in the cup is something genuinely special. Elderflower and lemon zest show up first, bright and clean, followed by a pleasant acidity that lands somewhere between red currant and tart cherry juice. There's a vibrancy to it that speaks to that Ethiopian lineage, but the Colombian terroir is present too, grounding everything in something a little deeper, a little more complex. It's the kind of coffee that rewards you for paying attention.
This one is for Don Carlos, and for the farm he built. We're just happy to be the ones sharing it.
