Watermelon Fermented Coffee

Every so often a coffee turns up that makes us taste it twice. This one came from a man who spent 40 years running someone else's coffee mill.

Jairo Arcila is a third-generation coffee grower from Quindío, in the heart of Colombia's coffee country. For more than 40 years he managed the mill for one of Colombia's biggest coffee exporters, retiring in 2019. Along the way he bought his first farm, Finca La Esmeralda, in 1987, and grew coffee on it while still working full time. Five more farms followed: Villarazo, Mazatlan, Santa Mónica, Maracay and Buenos Aires.

His sons, Carlos and Felipe, grew up around coffee and went on to co-found Cofinet, a specialty coffee exporter. With their help, Jairo changed how he picks, sorts and processes his coffee, and started growing rarer varieties like Pink Bourbon, Java and Gesha. He also started experimenting.

This lot is one of those experiments. It's Castillo, a variety bred in Colombia to stand up to leaf rust, grown on Santa Mónica at 1450 to 1500 metres in volcanic soil. Only the ripest cherries were picked. Whole and with the fruit still on, they were sealed in tanks for 72 hours with real watermelon, then pulped with the sticky fruit layer left on (a honey process) and dried on a patio for 11 days. No flavourings, just fruit and time.

Real watermelon. 72 hours. Nothing else.

On its own, it's a wild coffee. So we blended 20% of it into Darkwolf, our full-bodied dark roast, and let the watermelon ride on top of something familiar. Cotton candy watermelon up front, a nutty body underneath, and a strong, clean finish.

Drink it cold. Black over ice, it's a hint of watermelon with balanced sweetness and acidity. With milk, it's watermelon lolly with a real kick.

It's a limited release, and when it's gone, it's gone.