Green coffee - Colombia - La Cristalina Castillo - N-64h

La Cristalina is a 19-hectare farm. It is a family business with over 100 years of tradition. The owner of the farm was Guillermo Grajales, who left the farm to his sons Alberto and German after his death in 2015. Maria Grajales is the fifth generation of coffee farmers on this farm and from 2015 onwards she began to introduce different processing techniques such as natural processing. The main crop of Cristalina is coffee, mainly of the Castillo variety. There are also some plantain and orange trees. Since 2019, different types of cocoa have been grown to secure future sources of income in view of the expected climate change.

Each picker selects the best cherries, which are then placed in a fermentation tank filled with water. At this stage, the less dense beans, known as "floats," remain on the surface and are removed to improve quality. The water is then drained and the beans are left to ferment for 36 hours, covered with plastic. This process is called the oxidation process and occurs when the cherries come into contact with oxygen in a controlled environment.

The cherries begin their drying process on African drying beds the morning after the oxidation process has ended. This allows the sun exposure to increase throughout the day, allowing for slow drying while the liquid drains away. The beans are moved eight times a day until they reach a residual moisture content of 13%. From this point, the frequency of movements is reduced to six times a day to reduce the drying time until the optimum moisture content is reached.