Edinson Argote Pink Bourbon Thermal Shock

Pink Bourbon is one of coffee's more curious discoveries. Despite the name, DNA testing in 2017 and again in 2023 confirmed it isn't a Bourbon at all - it's genetically closer to wild Ethiopian varieties, a piece of Ethiopian heritage that somehow found its way into the Colombian Andes. It gets its name from the cherries themselves: rather than ripening red or yellow like most varieties, they turn a distinctive salmon-pink, a genetic quirk in how the plant expresses its pigment. It's notoriously tricky to grow and harvest too - the cherries can be hard for pickers to judge for ripeness, and the plant is more susceptible to disease than most commercial varieties - but in the right hands, it rewards the effort with real complexity in the cup.

Edinson's is one of those hands. His Pink Bourbon comes from Quebraditas, grown at 1,850 masl in Huila - the region considered the epicentre of the variety.

This lot is washed with thermal shock, a process built around precise timing and temperature. After pulping, the coffee ferments to remove the mucilage before a 50°C wash shocks it into its next phase, then ferments again for 65 hours with a specific yeast before a 5°C wash seals things in place, finishing with a mechanical dry.