This very special honey lot hails from the town of Aponte, in the optimal coffee growing lands of Colombia’s Nariño department. The coffee is a result of the perfect marriage of altitude, climate, and persistent hard work by various small farmers living nearby the town. Most of the growers here are very small scale and sometimes single lots are too small to sell under their own farm name. This means that blending into a community lot is the only option to place these on the specialty market. This speaks to the potential of blending to create a product that is more than the sum of its parts! The Aponte Honey blend is unique and represents the very best that these small holder farmers have to offer. The intense fermentation process that occurs when coffee is dried without removing the mucilage leads to a cup profile of intense red fruit. Honey processed coffees are complicated to elaborate, as they are susceptible to defects if not dried in perfect conditions. Luckily, weather in the Aponte area is perfect for this type of drying, as the heavy and cold winds that cross the canyon permit a slow and even drying process. Coffee is dried in raised beds in a covered greenhouse and is raked regularly. To reach optimal humidity, the process usually takes around 30 drying days. This slow, consistent process leads to an incredibly complex cup.