Colombia — Brayan Smith, Las Brisas Bourbon Ají (Washed)

Tastes Like — 🌸 Jasmine • 💐 Lavender • 🌼 Elderflower • 🍊 Orange Blossom

DETAILS

• Producer: Brayan Smith
• Farm: Las Brisas
• Region: Huila, Colombia
• Varietal: Bourbon Ají
• Process: Washed
• Altitude: 1,800 MASL
• Harvest: March 2026
• Size: 200g

INTRO

Las Brisas is a hillside estate in southern Huila, Colombia, managed by Brayan Smith, where high elevations and slow ripening cycles produce coffees with exceptional clarity and intensity.

This lot is Bourbon Ají — a distinctive variety chosen for its expressive and aromatic profile, cultivated here as part of Brayan's focus on rare and evolving genetics. For this lot, ripe cherries are picked at peak ripeness, depulped the same day, fermented aerobically for 24 to 36 hours, then dried slowly on raised beds for 20 days.

THE PRODUCER

Las Brisas sits at 1,800 MASL in the mountains of southern Huila — one of Colombia's most celebrated coffee-producing departments, renowned for producing coffees of exceptional sweetness, clarity and layered complexity.

Managed by Brayan Smith, the farm operates with a sharp focus on rare varieties and meticulous post-harvest work. Brayan's commitment to cultivating evolving genetics such as Bourbon Ají — combined with careful, unhurried processing — consistently yields lots of refined elegance and expressive character.

POMA's collaboration with Las Brisas centres on variety testing and agronomic research, including foliar nutrition studies, to better understand how cultivation decisions and processing choices shape cup quality at every stage from soil to cup.

THE PROCESS

The Washed process at Las Brisas involves:

• 🍒 Selective Harvest — Bourbon Ají cherries are hand-picked at peak ripeness, with careful selection to ensure only the most mature fruit is processed.
• 🔧 Same-Day Depulping — Cherries are depulped on the day of picking, minimising the window between harvest and processing to preserve freshness and floral clarity.
• 🧪 Aerobic Fermentation — Depulped beans ferment aerobically for 24–36 hours, allowing native microorganisms to break down the remaining mucilage and develop the variety's hallmark floral complexity.
• 💧 Washing — After fermentation, beans are thoroughly washed to remove all residual mucilage, ensuring a clean and precise cup free from fermentation artefacts.
• ☀️ Slow Raised Bed Drying — Beans dry on raised African beds for 20 days, allowing slow and even moisture loss that deepens sweetness and preserves delicate aromatic structure.
• 🌡️ High-Altitude Huila Climate — At 1,800 MASL, cool temperatures and steady airflow slow cherry ripening and drying alike, building the elegant, layered profile Las Brisas is known for.

The result is an elegant, refined expression of Bourbon Ají — heady florals given space to breathe by the clarity of an unhurried washed process.

THE CUP

Expect an elegant and refined Bourbon with heady florals of jasmine, lavender and elderflower, delicate tea-like clarity and subtle orange blossom on the finish. There is nothing pushed or forced here — just the Bourbon Ají variety expressing itself with quiet intensity through Brayan's precise, patient processing.

A standout from Huila's hillsides: floral, structured and unmistakably refined.

Flavour Notes

• 🌸 Jasmine
• 💐 Lavender
• 🌼 Elderflower
• 🍊 Orange Blossom