Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey
Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey

Colombia - Aroma Nativo Geisha Honey

130.00 Sale Save

lemon grass, jasmine, yuzu, kiwi, apricot

Weight 200 grams
Roast Profile Filter

Producer: Luis Marcelino / Aroma Nativo
Farm: Veci Project

Location: Acevedo, Huila
Variety: Geisha
Process: Honey Double Fermentation
Altitude: 1,600 masl

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Luis Marcelino wholeheartedly diverged from the well-trodden path of a strategic, corporate achiever well-established in a world city to find his place in the world of coffee.

The yearning to own his time and spend more of his days nearer to nature came while he was living and working in Paris. His love for drinking specialty coffee and the circumstance of his wife having ties in Colombia led him to explore opportunities for a fresh start toward what he believed to be a more fulfilling life they could build from there.

Having been born and raised, and come of age, in the wine-growing highlands of his home country Portugal, he has always had an innate affinity for natural landscapes, a sense of wonder for the bounties of the land, and an inexhaustible curiosity about his part in making the big picture more beautiful.

From 2017 to 2019, he spent two years traveling between France and Colombia to learn first-hand about coffee cultivation, processing, and the export/import trade. As he connected with a few farmers and seasoned producers, his interest in coffee genetics and the intricacies of processing flourished too.

Taking inspiration from Ninety Plus in Panama, he pitched the idea of venturing into natural and experimental processing to a partner, who was then only producing traditional, washed coffees according to the nationally sanctioned norm. After intentional and thoroughly documented experiments with small batches, he drew up the first non-traditional protocols that formed the foundations of his company, Aroma Nativo, established in 2019, with a processing hub based in Huila, Colombia, and a trading company headquartered in Paris, France.

Aroma Nativo has since made a name in the global competition scene as a producer of coffees used in top finishers' routines — most recently at the 2024 World Barista Championship, when the Netherlands’ Barista Champ finished in 7th Place and Sweden’s in 9th.


The cherries in this lot are the fruits of the hard work and dedication of a collective of coffee farmers who are part of the Veci Project.

With the 2022 acquisition of a five-hectare farmland dedicated to cultivating rare coffee varieties that will be processed towards 90+ levels, Luis is boosting his stake in the arena of competition coffees. This came on the heels of Aroma Nativo lots having been showcased by several coffee champions on their respective national stages — Portugal, Italy, Austria, and Sweden — and also represented in the world arena.

About Veci Project

In 2022, Luis implemented the Veci Project, having realized the extent to which purposeful processing could contribute to improving coffee quality and enable coffee farmers to enjoy a better quality of life when they get higher returns for their harvests.

He chose the name veci, shorthand for the colloquial vecino meaning neighbor, because it reflects the spirit of solidarity among the community of farmers the project seeks to serve.

Essentially, the project provides a viable alternative for coffee farmers with commendable agronomic practices to receive advance payments that aid their cash flow and also earn a premium for high-quality cherries suitable for expressing the in-demand flavor profiles sought by Aroma Nativo’s global network of renowned roasters.

The Veci Project is also instrumental for Luis to effectuate his passion for sustainably contributing to uplifting the vecis’ lives through education. Since the majority of them have not yet been initiated into the contemporary methods and consequent benefits of specialty coffee, they are still most comfortable with the notion of selling their coffees to conventional processing stations to be washed and marketed primarily as commercial-grade products.

To shift their mindset, Luis and his team at origin devote resources to conduct workshops covering a vast range of subjects from cultivation to post-harvest processing. Topics include: identifying coffee varieties, increasing shade cover in their farms, selective picking, and fermenting and drying their own cherries — all with the aim of improving quality and the potential to garner a higher cup score.

Conscious of the youth’s declining interest in coffee farming in the blessed terroir of Huila, Veci Project puts a priority on seeking out and speaking to the new generation of coffee farmers and producers. The core of their conversations is that doing a proper job with coffee — from cultivation and harvesting to processing — presents them with better opportunities to thrive at home, where they are, than the seeming attraction of migrating to larger cities, where they might not be as equipped to make it.

Geisha is a rare coffee variety with an extremely delicate root system that requires the perfect alignment of climatic, agronomic, and temporal factors in order to thrive and bear cherries with the level of complexity and flavor clarity coffee champions and discerning specialty coffee connoisseurs appreciate best.

While its exceptional cup quality potential has pre-eminently been recognized in association with Panama since debuting in the global luxury coffee scene in 2004, by way of the Best of Panama Auction, Geisha has also triumphantly been acclimatized to idyllic coffee-growing terrains in Colombia by intensely purposeful and progressive specialty coffee producers, such as Aroma Nativo.

Its cultivation requires careful attention. Farmers in the Veci Project meticulously follow cultivation and harvesting best practices such as regular fertilization proper pruning, and selective picking and to ensure ideal growth and yield. They also maintain proper shade management to facilitate the optimal ripening of cherries.

In this lot, by implementing a Honey Double Fermentation protocol, Luis was able to enhance the Colombia-grown Geisha’s flavor profile toward heightened florality interlaced with herbaceous and crisp citrus aromatics and refreshingly clear layers of piquant acidities balanced by ripe stone fruit sweetness.

brewing guide

- Ready your brewing tools ahead.
- Keep your coffee gear and containers clean.
- Decide and adjust your grind size based on:
— Your coffee’s roast date
— Your brewing method
- Be consistent with water quality and measuring weight, ratios, and time.
- Remember!
— Let your palate help you personalize the best recipe for you.
— Brew often and have fun!

More about Brewing here.

FOR FILTER

  • COFFEE-TO-WATER RATIO: 1:15
  • COFFEE GRIND SIZE: Medium fine
  • (like table salt; 21-28 clicks in Comandante MK4 and 14-18 clicks in Timemore C2)
  • COFFEE AGE: 7-14 days, ideally
  • COFFEE DOSE: 17 grams
  • WATER WEIGHT: 255 mL
  • WATER TEMPERATURE: 90°C-93°C
  • TARGET BREW TIME: 02:30 - 03:00

FOR ESPRESSO:

  • DOSE: 18 to 20 grams 
  • YIELD: 32 to 36 grams 
  • TIME: 22 to 26 seconds
  • RATIO: 1:1.8 - 1:2
  • TEMPERATURE: 90°C - 93°C

MILK RATIO SWEET SPOT:

DOSE

  • 90ml cup: 18-20 grams
  • 120ml cup: 18-20 grams
  • 150-180ml cup: 18-20 grams
  • 210-240ml cup: 18-20 grams

YIELD

  • 90ml cup: 40 mL (split shot)
  • 120ml cup: 20-24mL
  • 150-180ml cup: 22-28mL
  • 210-240ml cup: 30-32mL

TEMPERATURE: 90°C - 93°C

FOR YOUR POUR-OVER

1. Heat water to 90°C-93°C

2. Arrange your brewing set-up.

— Place your dripper on the carafe & filter paper in the dripper.

— Rinse the filter paper with hot water & remove the rinsing water from the carafe.

3. Switch on your scale.

4. Measure out 17 g of coffee & grind to Medium Fine.

5. Place the carafe and dripper with the rinsed filter paper onto the scale, & tare.

6. Transfer the ground coffee to the dripper; then, tare.

7. Start the timer!

First pour to bloom, 55ml for 30 seconds.

Second pour, 100 ml at 00:30.

Third pour, the final 100ml at 01:15

8. Target to finish the brew within 02:30 to 03:00 minutes.

9. Serve & enjoy!

FOR A WELL-EXTRACTED ESPRESSO—

- Align your brewing variables

- Adjust according to specifics of your situation, like your —

— Espresso machine settings

— Portafilter basket size

— Grinder

— Puck prep style

More here for tips to dial in on point spros.