Rafael Amaya's farm, Finca La Virginia, is located at 1,700-1,800 MASL near the town of Timaná, in Colombia’s Huila department. In 2010 Rafael decided to focus his production on speciality grade coffee, and as a result he was able to sell 20% of his coffee at a significant premium. This was quite a feat at a time when Colombia’s speciality market was relatively small.

Since then Rafael has been constantly striving to learn, and to improve the quality of the coffee that he grows. In 2014 he joined SENA, which provides free agricultural training, and with the assistance of his teacher, he started experimenting with different fermentation techniques. 7 years on, and the results have been dramatic. Rafael is now able to sell 90% of his production as micro-lots of sensational quality.

This particular lot is a caturra that was hand-picked at peak ripeness. The coffee is first floated, and hand-sorted, before being dry-fermented for 100 hours inside GrainPro bags at 20 degrees Celsius, thereby increasing the concentration of lactic acid. It is then pulped, washed and dried on raised beds.

In the cup the coffee is clean, crisp and sweet, with a syrupy mouthfeel, and notes of green apple, pear drops and plum yoghurt.

Rafael Amaya

Red Bank is guided by three core principles - Quality, Traceability and Sustainability. From our base in the heart of the Lake District we source only coffees that are able to satisfy these criteria to roast on our eco-friendly Loring S15 Falcon. Our roasting philosophy is to roast each coffee such that it is fully developed, but to terminate the roast before "roast" flavours start to develop. The ultimate goal is to unlock each coffee's full potential, and to allow it to sing in the cup.

Rafael Amaya

4.0

Rafael Amaya

4.0

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