Santuario Project Cherry Madness Red Bourbon Filter Coffee

Straight out of Colombia’s Cauca highlands and it is anything but ordinary. This coffee is a flavour-driven experiment, an anaerobic-natural Red Bourbon that reads like a dessert menu. Think cherry, orange, plum and baker’s chocolate, all wrapped in velvety sweetness.

Finca Santuario began more than two decades ago when Camilo Merizalde set out to prove he could produce the finest Colombian coffee. Volume was never the goal. Instead, the farm leans into biodiversity and strict quality control, pairing volcanic soils with a patchwork of rare varieties. The result is a catalogue of lots that set benchmarks not only in Colombia but across the global specialty scene.

• Ratio: 1:16
• Dose: 15g
• Yield: 240ml
• Water Temperature: 94°C
• Brew Time: 2:20 min

For the Cherry Madness process, only cherries with sugar levels above 24° Brix are selected. After picking, they are soaked in water for 4 hours and then begin their first anaerobic fermentation, lasting 69 hours with the addition of Must (a mixture of crushed cherry pulp) that, like in winemaking, provides extra sugars for the microbes to feed on.

Once fermentation is complete, the cherries are depulped, leaving about 25% of the mucilage, and then go through a second anaerobic fermentation for 42 hours, again with Must added. After that, the coffee is sun-dried on African beds for 18 days until it reaches 10.5% humidity, then moved to a shaded area for 5 days to stabilise. Finally, it is stored in GrainPro bags before being milled and prepared for export.