Edwin Noreña Finca Campo Hermoso

Edwin Noreña Finca Campo Hermoso Armenia Quindío Colombia, Arabica Pink Bourbon, Honey Rose Co-fermentation, 2024

Honey | Lychee | Rose/"Bandong" | Orange Blossom

The famous Finca Campo Hermoso of Colombia is a 25 ha farm at 1750-1900 m in Circasia, Quindio. In Spanish, Finca means estate, Campo means countryside, Hermoso means beautiful. Like traditional Colombian farms, it grows the high yielding variety of Caturra, Colombia and Castillo. Another common variety in specialty farms is the Bourbon, which may be a familiar coffee in Singapore but less so in Colombia. Our coffee is made using Pink Bourbon, which is considered an exotic variety.

In recent years, traditional Colombian farms have come to the forefront of international coffee competitions, led by younger farm owners who inherited the trade from their ancestors. Finca Campo Hermoso is no different. In fact, the owner Edwin Noreña has had an unfortunate head start when he inherited the farm at 14 years old when his father died. Today, the fourth-generation farmer has managed to make a name for himself in innovative processing techniques. With 20 years of experience under his belt and most of the later half focused on experimental processing, his unique experimental Bourbon and Caturra coffees are highly sought after. He is also very well trained and established in the coffee scene, being a coffee processing consultant, Q-grader and head judge for the Colombian Cup of Excellence competition.

Another famous Colombian coffee company Cofinet focuses on wine inspired techniques of fermentation with wine yeast. Parchmen & Co have featured these coffees to a great extent. Edwin Noreña is best known for inventing the craft beer IPA processing method using hops and his elaborate and innovative steps in coffee fermentation. Our honey rose coffee is done in such a method. He choose cherries with a minimum Brix level of 23 and put them in 30kg bags for 24 hours to undergo partial anaerobic fermentation. The cherries are then transferred to tanks and coffee juice from compressed cherries, called mosto, are filled in. The large blue tubs are then closed to allow carbonic maceration for 72 hours. The fermented mosto are then drained and yet transferred to other smaller tubs. The cherries are depulped and added to the tubs. This is when honey rose petals are added for the concurrent fermentation (termed 'co-fermentation'). When the desired fermentation level is achieved after a slightly longer time compared to traditional methods, the parchment coffee is sundried on African raised bed or patio for about 3 weeks to reach a stable 10% moisture level. The parchment are then kept in a warehouse for about 1 week to restablise the moisture content under room temperature and condition before they are bagged. These innovative steps produce surprisingly well-integrated flavour notes not available via traditional processes. The co-fermentation is done in the parchment stage, so we understand it as a variation of the honey process.

We wrote a blog post on this coffee in 2022. In June 2024, we wrote another blog post to reflect on evolving trends which include maceration coffees.

Roast Profile
This coffee is very delicate. To maintain clarity, we have chosen to roast it very light with a very short duration from crack - purportedly giving the coffee a short afterflavour, and in direct contrary to Parchmen's roasting philosophy that a coffee is only complete when the afterflavour does not crash. However, this coffee exhibits an incredible lingering afternote even at this degree of light roasting. 


Brew Flavour
We are brewing this coffee on the Crystal Ice using 18g at 600µm to 230ml of 91°C water. The dry grounds smells like a perfume, exuding notes of intense sweetness like honey candy, on a cocoa nibs base. These notes translate seamlessly into the brew, capturing us with the addictive honey, lychee and rose aroma, with hints of lime, orange blossom, roselle, currants and juniper berries, all well integrated with a medium and smooth body. For a moment, it is like drinking perfume. The nose and throat remain perfumed very long after you swallow the coffee. When cold, honey, dark chocolate and rosemary notes continue to impress and amaze you. To compensate for the short duration after crack, we are doing a 3-part brew here:

18g at 600µm to 230ml of 91°C
0th sec - 80ml
45th - 75th sec - Add 120ml to reach 200ml
90th sec - Add 30ml to reach 230ml

Savouring our world in a cup!
Enjoy!