Hot off the heels of Cedar’s last Colombian release comes another from Finca El Diviso, and this one’s an extra special reserve lot. El Diviso is a family-owned farm located in Huila, one of Colombia’s most famous coffee producing regions. Huila is spanned by the Andes mountains, accounts for some 18% of Colombia’s total coffee production, and has produced numerous Cup of Excellence-winning coffees in the past.

Like many established Colombian specialty coffee producers, Nestor Lasso and his family-run farm are adept at utilising innovative coffee processing techniques to achieve truly unique results with their harvests. This particular lot has undergone a unique form of anaerobic fermentation. If you’d like a detailed description, check out Cedar’s notes below, but the gist of it is that this coffee has been through several rounds of fermentation, each involving rigorous temperature control and periods of oxidation between each ferment. 

The final stage involves fermenting this coffee cherry in the mossto, the actual fruit juice of the coffee cherry, of a previous harvest. This allows unique fruity flavours to seep in and mingle with the cherry’s own flavour, while being intensified and modified by fermentation in a low-oxygen environment. What’s more is that this coffee is of a relatively unfamiliar variety, called Aji, which you can also read more about below. All in all, there’s plenty about this coffee to get excited about, and you’d better grab a bag while you can — Cedar’s reserve lots don’t last forever.

Cedar’s notes

“A light mouthfeel on filter with notes of stone fruit. Think peach, the one with the orange flesh inside. The espresso is definitely the highlight, concentrating the delicate notes picked up on filter. Stone fruit notes such as peach but also apricot can be found. On Milk we picked up notes of English Toffee frozen yoghurt similar to what you would get at Marcels.”

• Cup profile: Orange blossom, peach, apricot, English toffee

Coffee details from Cedar

“Aji is quite a new cultivar being grown in Huila as it's actually a 100% Ethiopian landrace that is usually grown in Ethiopia. This becomes clear once you start brewing this coffee with very familiar Ethiopian notes. Think floral aroma and stone fruits. Fun fact: this year's World Barista Champion (2024) used the same Aji Cultivar from El Diviso to win.

“This is not a coffee to punch you in the face with full flavour. Instead, as it lingers you will find a complexity of flavour."

• Farm: El Diviso
• Producer: Nestor Lasso
• Region: Huila
• Country: Colombia
• Process:  Anaerobic natural
• Altitude: 1870 masl
• Variety: Aji

“Let's dive into how this particular lot gets processed:

• Only ripe berries are chosen which then undergo an 18 hour oxidation at an average room temperature of 25°C
• The cherries are then subjected to an anaerobic fermentation for 30 hours at an average temperature of 16 to 18°C.
• They are then transferred to tanks and oxidised for 28 hours, reaching a maximum temperature of 42°C.
• They are then transferred into a new container to start another anaerobic fermentation for 30 hours at a temperature of 16 to 20°C.
• The cherries in the tanks are then submerged in water at 45 degrees C. Leachate/mossto from a previous harvest is added and recirculated over 18 hours.
• The cherry is then placed on canopies to begin the drying process.
• Once the cherry reaches a humidity level of 18% it is transferred to black bags in a dark warehouse space, and left to dry for 60 hours until reaching a moisture level of 11%."