Here’s a special treat from Huila!

Alirio and his wife Anayibe Ortiz are members of Los Guacharos, and they are no strangers to the Small Batch offer list (no surprise here.. we’ve been working with them, and Los Guacharos, since 2016).

Alirio could be considered one of the most ambitious producers we work with, with two farms and some super interesting and challenging varietals planted: in addition to this so -called “borbon aji”, he has Caturra Chiroso, Caturron, Ombligon, Bourbon Sidra, San Bernardo, and Pink Borbon.The variety gained its name as producers found that cherries harvested from these borbon-like trees had an aroma reminiscent of chilli spice(Aji means “chili” in Spanish).. . In the cup, however, happily there’s no chilli heat whatsoever! We find loads of complexity .. there’s orange and red fruit flavours dancing the spectrum from orange to cherry to cranberry, along with mild floral and baking spice undertones.Interestingly, it turns out that this variety has recently been discovered to not be a borbon/bourbon after all. DNA testing has determined that it’s genetically distinct from ancestor seeds carried to the Americas centuries ago and is in fact a newly discovered Ethiopian Landrace not found in many accessions.This January 2024 purchase is fermented in cherry for 36-40 hours, then depulped and fermented without water until it’s ready to wash.

Pricing transparency: we personally paid Alirio $4,200,000 pesos per carga of parchment via our Colombian entity Shared Source SAS.