Our new exploration on our journey! ; Frozen Cherry, Colombia by Felipe Trujillo!

Felipe, our magician, asked himself a very critical question; how to creatively solve the drying bed capacity at a specialty coffee mill? The result; Frozen Cherry – a sweet and an extraordinary coffee!

Once picked and washed, the cherries’ mass is kept in a tank to start an aerobic fermentation where cells metabolize sugars via fermentation in the presence of oxygen. This first step takes 400 hours to make the best out of this process. This long fermentation is then stopped by storing the cherries in a freezer at -18C. This method is commonly used to have more control over the fermentation process and helps to free up space in the drying beds. Once frozen, the cherries are taken out to get a thaw. This process takes around 3 days. A careful step because each cherry must get unfrozen the same as the other. Lastly, the cherries are spread in sunbeds driers for 5 to 6 weeks, until they get up to 11% moisture.