COLOMBIA - FRANCY CASTILLO - SPECIAL EDITION -200G

Francy and her four sisters grew up helping her parents at the coffee farm, which inspired her to major in Agronomy to provide support and management for the family business. She completed her university degree through distance learning all while working on her farm to pay for her studies. After graduating in 2019, she began working at the FNC as a Field Assistant around her hometown of Arboleda, Nariño. She also gained experience in sensory development by working at a private export lab in Buesaco. In her own words, "I became even more interested in coffee and day by day I wanted to learn more about the beautiful world of coffee".

Once the buying program for Apex was established in Arboleda, farmers like Francy had a connection to the international market. Francy writes, "I heard a lot about Apex and my new goal was to be able to reach them with coffee from our farm as a family and especially to be able to show the coffee of our people from our municipality of Arboleda because we live far away from everything and our coffee has not been recognized". Facilitating market access for farmers like Doña Francy is the primary goal of Apex and we're so proud to work with them with offering her fantastic coffee.

At El Ubérrimo, farm tasks like planting, fertilization, and harvesting are done with the help of Francy's neighbours and family members. Production practices on the farm are focused on using the least amount of chemicals to preserve the naturally occurring microbial life in the soil. This helps support the growth of healthy coffee plants. The result of this is evident in the clean, sweet, and complex flavours found in the final cup.

Before harvest, the cherries are left on the tree to further ripen until they develop a deep, wine-like colour which usually takes an additional 3 weeks. Once the majority of cherries have reached their ideal sweetness and colour, the ripe ones are picked and left in clean sacks to ferment for approximately 36 hours in a cool environment. Afterwards, the cherries are soaked in water, removing floaters before depulping. The coffees are then placed in clean tanks to ferment without water for a period of 100 hours. Finally, they are washed and dried on patios for 15 to 20 days.

(Source: Apex)