Darly Diaz Pink Bourbon Anaerobic Natural

Darly Diaz, a third-generation producer with over 30 years of experience wants to transform her farm into a business that’s protecting the environment and yielding social and economic benefits for her family and community. Since 2010, Darly’s vision for a sustainable coffee producing culture has led her to produce specialty coffee.

Darly’s farm, Finca Bilbao, is located at 1,480 meters above sea level in Acevedo, Huila. This altitude helps create the warm days and cool nights that produce sweet, dense cherry. This lot is composed of Pink Bourbon. The variety, a cross between Red and Yellow Bourbon, has all the cup potential of its Bourbon parents and is in high demand. Some reports indicate that Pink Bourbon has a higher sugar content, mainly glucose, leading to a sweeter coffee.

Darly and her family selectively handpick ripe, red cherry and process it on their farm. They ferment cherry anaerobically in plastic bags for 72 hours. Then, cherry is removed from bags and laid to dry. Darly and her family rake cherry frequently to ensure even drying.

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.  

The Huila region is one of the most well-known coffee growing areas of Colombia. The Department of Huila has a population of 1.125 million and is located in the southwest of the country. The capital of the department is Neiva, a city of about 380,000.  

Along with Cauca and Nariño, Huila is one the three departments where the Colombian Massif is located. A massif is a group of mountain ranges and the Colombian Massif, which is known locally as Nudo de Almaguer, provides up to 70% of safe drinking and agricultural water for the Colombian population. 

The Magdalena River, Colombia’s largest river, runs through the region, providing plenty of water for coffee farming and generating (directly and indirectly) up to 86% of Colombia's GDP. The mountain range also features the fertile volcanic soil so typical to the Andean Mountains.