Rodrigo Sánchez Blueberry Co-Ferment Colombia

Why we Love this Coffee:

Rodrigo Sánchez has become known for the incredible work at his farm Monteblanco in the co-fermentation space. This coffee is co-fermented with Blueberries and other red fruits using a special process that he has honed, and the result is a very unique and wild blueberry bomb. This as an iced pour over has been a hit at HQ for us this summer. 

More About this Coffee

Finca Monteblanco, located high along the winding mountain roads of Vereda La Tocora in the San Adolfo municipality above Pitalito, is a family farm managed by Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia in the tradition of coffee cultivation that began with his grandfather. Monteblanco’s 18 hectares sit on the crest of a hill, with the wetmill and drying facilities at the top of the farm and slopes of coffee planted below. 

In 2002 Rodrigo participated in a local program teaching local children of coffee producers to cup. Before that, he and his family had never considered coffee in terms of cup profile. By learning to differentiate profiles, he and his father and grandfather were able to make the connections between the farming techniques they applied and coffee’s resulting attributes in the cup. 

At this time, Rodrigo also began to learn about cupping competitions that evaluate the best lots from farms in a region. He noticed that farms would win one year and then never again, so he decided to investigate how to produce quality coffee consistently. This led him to explore the trees planted on Monteblanco, where he discovered various varieties his grandfather had planted in the 1980’s. One of these varieties is Purple Caturra, a type of Caturra whose cherries ripen to a deep purple color. 

Rodrigo is proud that he, his wife Claudia Samboni, farm manager Don Gerardo, and the team that works in the fields and at the mill have reached the goal of achieving consistent quality. Finca Monteblanco produces microlots with each harvest that serve as competition coffees around the world, but the farm also consistently produces containers of delicious coffees that appear year-round on café menus and retail shelves. By applying an ethic of rigorous monitoring, planning, and management at each stage of production and processing, all coffees from Monteblanco showcase their full potential. 

Harvesting and processing on Monteblanco have had to evolve with the times, adapting to a changing climate that yields harvest times dispersed through ten months of the year rather than in a concentrated peak. Coffees from Monteblanco are milled and prepared for export at the new, state-of-the-art Aromas del Sur drymill in Pitalito. 

This lot undergoes a controlled co-fermentation process designed to build a distinct berry-forward profile while maintaining balance and structure. The process begins with the isolation and cultivation of specific microorganisms - primarily Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae - which are grown separately before being introduced into a developing culture.

A key differentiator in this process is the use of a hydromel base, created by boiling and extracting compounds from fruits to concentrate their essence. This is added to the microbial culture alongside red fruits and blueberries, forming a “mother culture” that is progressively fed with sugars like molasses or cane sugar to sustain microbial activity. Over roughly 150 hours, this culture ferments and stabilizes, reaching the targeted Brix and pH levels before being introduced to the coffee.

Once harvested, the coffee is sorted, floated, and pulped before being transferred into sealed fermentation tanks. The prepared fruit culture is added, and the coffee undergoes a second fermentation of approximately 150 hours, with strict monitoring to maintain sugar levels and control acidity.

Throughout the process, the focus is on precision rather than intensity, building layered blueberry and red fruit characteristics through controlled microbial activity without overwhelming the intrinsic qualities of the coffee.

Geography: Colombia 

Region: Huila

Elevation: 1730 m

Producer: Rodrigo Sánchez Valencia

Variety: Purple Caturra

Process: Blueberry Co-fermented Washed