Juan Puerta La Sirena Watermelon Honey 

Juan David Puerta is a food engineer by training with a passion for pushing the boundaries of what coffee can be. He started his career as an academic rather than a farmer, with a degree in Food Science and Engineering from the University of Quindío. His coffee passion was sparked during his training internship in coffee-related companies, and after his degree he went on to work with various coffee companies and cooperatives in the region, where he gained expertise in coffee production and export.  

In 2022, he founded his company, Sens Coffee, around the idea that coffee should evoke a distinct sensory experience – something truly different from traditional coffee experiences. The project initially started as "Sens Tea", processing coffee husks and combining them with lemongrass or chamomile to sell as aromatics. Over a short time, Juan David evolved it into selling roasted coffee and experimenting with osmotic dehydration*, and ultimately he opted to get into growing and primary processing of green coffee. 

Situated at 1,350 meters above sea level in the heart of Colombia’s Coffee Region (Eje Cafetero), his farm, Finca La Sirena, has become a space for experimentation and craftsmanship. This is truly an achievement. La Sirena sits at an altitude that 50 years ago was considered ideal for high-quality Arabica, but due to climate change, this elevation increasingly is increasingly under threat of diminishing production and decreasing cup quality. Juan's innovative processing gives farms at this precarious elevation a pathway to remain profitable and successful. He works with other farmers in the region to help drive this forward.  

The name “Sens” is a direct reflection of Juan David’s philosophy: to produce coffees that go beyond flavor and create something the drinker truly feels. Rather than following conventional processing paths, he designs each lot with a specific sensory outcome in mind, drawing on his background in food science to develop techniques that are precise, deliberate and unlike anything found on traditional farms in the region. 

In the same year the farm was founded, Sens made its first export to Germany – a sign of the confidence and ambition behind the project from day one. This Watermelon Co-fermented Honey lot is a prime example of what La Sirena stands for: a coffee shaped by curiosity, technical rigour and a genuine desire to offer something truly different.

Finca La Sirena benefits from the ideal growing conditions of Colombia’s Coffee Region, with its rich soils, consistent rainfall and altitude providing the foundation for high-quality specialty production. The farm’s 28,000+ coffee trees are mostly Castillo, which is cultivated with an eye towards biodiversity conservation and limited environmental impact.   

Beyond the farm itself, Juan David works closely with the families whose cherry he buys, providing hands-on training in good agricultural practices. The result is better quality coffee all round, and because payment for cherry is tied to cup quality rather than market rates, that improvement translates directly into higher earnings for the producers involved. 

For this innovative and unique Watermelon Honey process, coffee cherries are selectively picked at optimum maturation and floated to remove lightweight or defective fruit. Cherry then undergoes three days of dry fermentation in closed tanks before pulping. The pulped coffee is submerged in tanks of concentrated glucose juice blended with a large quantity of fresh watermelon, with the Brix level adjusted to achieve osmotic dehydration, a food science technique that uses the principle of osmosis to draw moisture out of a food product*. After two days, the coffee is transferred to traditional sun dryers for around 15 days where it is raked regularly until ideal moisture levels are reached. 

* When you submerge something in a solution that has a higher concentration of dissolved substances (like sugar) than the food itself, water naturally migrates out of the food and into the surrounding solution to try to balance the two sides. At the same time, some of the compounds from the solution move into the food. 

In Juan David's case, the pulped coffee is submerged in a concentrated glucose and watermelon solution. The glucose creates the osmotic pressure needed to pull moisture out of the coffee, while flavour compounds from the watermelon are driven into the bean in the opposite direction. It's essentially a controlled, science-based way of locking fruit flavour into the coffee at a molecular level, rather than just fermenting coffee alongside fruit and hoping some character transfers across. 

Founded by experienced agricultural trader Vicente Mejía, Clearpath Coffee works with producers in Colombia and exports high quality, sustainable single-origin coffees from smallholders, cooperatives and estates. Clearpath partners with producers to support ethical, sustainable growth through fair prices, direct communication with buyers and building long term relationships with sustainability-minded buyers.