Valle de Oro Barrel 24h

Fermentation is where a coffee gets most of its character, before the roaster ever sees it. In a barrel of water the cherries ferment submerged, cut off from air, and the microbes that live on the fruit work through its sugars in the dark. As they do, the acid in the pulp shifts from mild toward something juicier and finer, and what they leave behind is locked into the bean.

This one is the short ferment: a day in the water, enough for the sugars to move without losing the coffee underneath. We tasted it and got intense chocolate.