Asoguacharos Pink Bourbon FW

Led by producer Edilma Piedrahita, the 27 producers in Asoguacharos maintain high quality standards and produce excellent specialty coffees. Based in Huila, the group seeks out training opportunities provided by NGOs and the national learning service, SENA. As members of Asoguacharos, producers follow high quality standards and, in return, gain market access and garner higher prices for their coffees.

In the future, they plan to make their farms a center for ecotourism. They’ve attended trainings on how to set up tours and attract visitors.

Each producer processed their own coffee on their farms and adapt their methods to best suit their specific conditions, leading to unique variations from each producer.  Producers selectively handpick ripe, red cherry. They pulp cherry on their farm and ferment it in buckets or tanks. Following fermentation, parchment is washed in clean water and laid to dry on marquesinas, parabolic dryers that are typically on the roofs of producers’ homes.

Pink Bourbon was previously thought to be a hybrid of Yellow and Red Bourbon varieties. The variety was first identified growing in and around Huila, Colombia. Recent research has found that Pink Bourbon is in fact not Bourbon at all. Pink Bourbon mostly likely comes from an Ethiopian landrace variety.

Pink Bourbon has a stunningly high cup potential that wows coffee professionals and consumers alike. Its impressively high cup quality makes even more sense now that we understand Pink Bourbon is not simply a hybrid of two Bourbon varieties but traces to Ethiopian landraces. Its siblings include the highly-prized Geisha, which has consistently produced incredibly high cup scores. Pink Bourbon will continue to be a highly distinguished and valued variety.

Some farmers also report that Pink Bourbon has more disease resistance than the Bourbons it grows alongside. Based on these new discoveries, this may be due to the genetic variety it has coming from Ethiopian landraces.