Aroma of paw paw and Stargazer Lily with sweet, silky flavors of ripe red raspberry, lychee, orange and pear, punctuated by flavors of hops, pine, ginger, allspice, grapefruit, eucalyptus, star anise, chocolate and toffee. The India Pale Ale of coffee.
The current figurehead of experimental coffee processing, Edwin Noreña (El Alquimista), has done it again. This time with his triple fermented, Galaxy Hops infused Pink Bourbon coffee from Finca Campo Hermoso in Quindío, Colombia.
His processing of the Galaxy Pink starts with the picking of perfectly ripe Pink Bourbon coffee. After a water immersion to float any underripe seeds hidden in the cherries, he puts the whole cherry into large sealed drums for an initial 32 hour fermentation. The seeds are then de-pulped from the fermented cherry, the cherry is set aside and the de-pulped seeds are open tank fermented for another 32 hours. Next, the sticky, sweet coffee cherry from the initial fermentation is infused with Galaxy Hops and recombined with the de-pulped coffee seeds and undergoes a third, 32 hour sealed anaerobic fermentation in sealed drums. After the third and final fermentation, the coffee is sun-dried on raised beds for ten to fifteen days and warehouse conditioned for an additional eight day period of repose.
The remarkable success of this coffee lies in its compliment of variety and process with neither one fully taking the upper hand. Rather, they parley on the palate revealing each other’s attributes from piping hot through cool down, from initial aromatic waft to lingerings in the long.
Galaxy hops is a spotlight here, for sure, and the hops bring with them an unmistakable India Pale Ale character. A multitude of tangy, crisp Pink Bourbon flavors are alluringly transformed through fermentation to open up a world of tastes that dance around one another beneath a blanket of muskiness akin to the elusive paw paw (aka. guanabana or soursop). If you enjoyed last year’s Galaxy Gesha, this year’s Galaxy Pink continues to explore the relationship between coffee and hops with much aplomb.
After repose, this coffee is sealed in Grain-Pro barrier packaging at origin and then sent on its way to our Roastery where we preserve the green coffee under hermetic seal until it is roasted as part of our Barrington Green Seal Program© .
NOTE: This coffee will be roasted and shipped only on Wednesday of each week.