Colombia — Marlon Bolaños / The Three Coffee Farmers, Gesha (Natural)

Tastes Like — 🍓 Jammy Strawberry • 🍈 Grenadine • 🌺 Hibiscus

DETAILS

• Producer: Marlon Bolaños / The Three Coffee Farmers
• Farm: The Three Coffee Farmers
• Region: Huila, Colombia
• Varietal: Gesha
• Process: Natural
• Altitude: 1,600–1,800 MASL
• Size: 125g

INTRO

Marlon Bolaños's project "The Three Coffee Farmers" produces some of the most extraordinary coffees to come out of Huila. This Natural Gesha delivers the intensity Marlon is known for — overripe jammy strawberry, syrupy grenadine sweetness, cooling into hibiscus florals and a zingy lime finish.

THE PRODUCER

Marlon didn't take a serious interest in coffee until the age of 17, when he enrolled in a Barista education course at SENA, learning brewing, green coffee grading, and sensory analysis. That course changed everything. Upon returning to the family farm, he began planting differentiated varietals — pink bourbon, gesha, chiroso — whilst experimenting with new fermentation techniques on each subsequent harvest.

Today the farm is jointly owned by Marlon and his brothers Pedro and Hemerson. Marlon leads quality control, fermentation protocol development, sampling, and logistics. He has also won multiple barista and brewing competitions, using spring water drawn directly from the family's farm — water so naturally mineral-rich and well-suited to brewing that peers have coined it "Champion's Water."

THE PROCESS

The Natural process on this Gesha lot involved careful cherry selection at peak ripeness before a minimal-intervention drying protocol:

• 🍒 Harvesting — Overripe cherry selection to maximise sweetness and fruit density
• ☀️ Initial drying — Brief open-air drying in cherry prior to fermentation
• 🧪 Anaerobic phase — 60 hours sealed in a container to develop layered fermentation character
• 🌿 Greenhouse drying — Transferred to raised beds in a greenhouse for 20 days of slow, controlled drying

The result is a fruit-forward cup with the clarity and complexity of a carefully managed natural — expressive without being funky.

THE CUP

This Natural Gesha opens with an abundance of overripe jammy strawberry and syrupy grenadine sweetness. As it cools, delicate hibiscus florals emerge alongside a bright, citric lime finish that lingers.

Flavour Notes

• 🍓 Jammy Strawberry
• 🍈 Grenadine
• 🌺 Hibiscus