The beans—and therefore the farmer behind our “Genial” coffee—have changed. Luckily, we were fortunate enough to find a very similar replacement: The Anaerobic Natural Castillo beans are equally refreshing, sweet and complex. A real summer drink with flavors of dark choc, plum, blackcurrant, mango, cherry. So sweet, so good! It's one of those taste experiences that leaves you thinking, "May I have another cup, please?" for hours after drinking it. To achieve such complex flavors, the cherries are fermented in stainless-steel tanks for 48 hours before being dried in silos at 28°C. After 16 hours, the drying is paused, then resumed at 37°C until the coffee reaches 20% humidity. The beans then rest in sealed barrels for 24 hours before being dried down to 10% in a parabolic dryer. We discovered this coffee thanks to Valentina Duque, the owner of Siruma Coffee. After tasting the sample, we didn't have to think twice and bought two bags of 70 kg each. Please note (!) that the beans may look like a dark roast at home, but in fact, they are "light" roasted—meaning shorter roast time and at a lower final temperature than espresso roasts. This is a heavily fermented natural coffee, where the green beans already arrive dark at the roastery (see the image below compared to washed fermented beans). During roasting, they become even darker due to their high sugar content and resulting caramelization. So, dark-looking beans don’t necessarily mean they are dark roasted!
