Juan Restrepo Jardin Pink Bourbon Natural

Elmer & Juan Felipe Restrepo, the father and son team behind Finca Jardin & Finca Chambacu are re-envisioning coffee production in Chinchina. The rolling hills of Chinchina, Caldas, the third biggest coffee producer in Colombia after Pitalito in Huila and Planadas in Tolima, are home to bigger estates that mainly focus on high volume commercial quality production. Elmer and Juan Felipe are redefining their coffee production with a hybrid approach.

While they continue to devote a portion of farm to commercial production, they have been increasingly developing their specialty offerings and experimenting with new and varied processing styles.

Juan Felipe has taken the helm of the specialty aspect of the operation. He has been a passionate experimenter, developing countless processing protocols to enable him to bring out the best in the coffees from their 4 specialty plots – El Placer, Jardin 1, Jardin 2 and Chambacu.

Elmer and Juan Felipe employ 12 year-round workers who carry out selective handpicking during the harvest and help with farm upkeep in the off-season. This team is paid a premium for their selective picking expertise and their full-time employment helps them maintain stable income throughout the year.

Colombia’s wetter, more humid climate makes producing Naturals more difficult, making their clean and fruity, repeatedly large volume Naturals an extraordinary find.

Much of their success is due to their innovative processing methods that make producing clean, large volume Naturals possible, no matter the weather.

Elmer and Juan Felipe use Brix (a measurement of sugar content) to ensure that only perfect ripe cherry – cherry with about 21% Brix – is processed. 

After selective harvesting and sorting, cherry is pre-fermented in plastic buckers for 24 hours. Then, cherry is laid on raised beds inside parabolic driers to sundry. Workers rake cherry frequently to ensure even drying.

The coffee is milled at the Restrepo’s dry mill, called Invercafe, located in the town a few kilometers away from the farm.

Parts of Caldas are located in Eje Cafetero, the Colombian Coffee Growing Axis. Eje Cafetero was the first major coffee-producing region in Colombia. For many years, the region held the distinction of being the most well-known and highly sought-after Colombian coffee region. Tropical rainforest conditions, volcanic soil and a wealth of rivers and streams in Eje Cafetero make the area ideal for coffee growing.

Today, producers in Caldas are increasingly focused on high-quality coffee production. These producers have become common and well-known enough to earn an affectionate colloquial name in the region. They’re called juiciosos (literally: sensible/wise), which in this case means hard-working and attentive to detail. In addition to finding ways to perfect existing processing methods, juiciosos are experimenting with new processing methods and planting new varieties of coffee.

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.