Filter: Colombia Las Palmas Natural Tabi/Pink Bourbon

Our friends from Primavera hooked us up with this delicious variety blend. We had Pink Bourbon and Tabi before, but never together in a variety blend. Pink Bourbon is one of our favorite varieties and mixed with Tabi it only gets better. Last year we had a Tabi and it was outstanding. Expect fruity notes like green melon, but also some purple fruits and it has a tea-like finish.

Efren Echeverri and his family are relatively new to speciality coffee, starting production in 2019. But they have owned the farm for a total of 22 years. The family grows high-quality varieties including Pink Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, Tabi, Caturra, and Gesha. They have also worked to incorporate state-of-the-art fermentation techniques on the farm.

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.

Tabi is a cross between Typica, Bourbon and Timor that was created by CENICAFE. It was released in 2002 and combines coffee leaf rust resistance with the good cup quality of Bourbon and Typica. Similar to those two parents, Tabi is tall with long branches. However, Tabi has slightly larger fruits and seeds and can be grown at high altitudes, and in high density, with up to 3,000 trees per hectare. The name comes from the word “tabi,” meaning “good” in Guambiano, the dialect of a native Colombian tribe.

Fresh cherries are received at the processing center, composed of 60% Tabí
and 40% Pink Bourbon. The cherries are floated and rinsed, then fermented anaerobically in barrels for 70 hours. Finally, it is dried in drying patios for 20 days.