Pink Bourbon is Colombia's most coveted variety. This honey-processed lot is everything that makes it extraordinary.
Pink Bourbon is not a color. It is a genetic rarity. A natural mutation of the Bourbon variety, it produces cherries of a distinctive pinkish-rose hue when ripe — unusual enough that farmers who first encountered it often couldn't tell when to harvest it, because it didn't turn the red or yellow they expected. Today, Pink Bourbon is one of the most sought-after varieties in specialty coffee, commanding auction premiums that rival Gesha.
The variety grows in limited quantities in Colombia's Huila department, where the combination of altitude (1,750–2,000 meters), volcanic soil, and bi-annual harvest cycles creates conditions for extraordinary expression. Its cup profile is famously floral — rose, hibiscus, raspberry — with a delicacy that washed processing would enhance but honey processing enriches further.
Honey processing is the middle path between washed and natural. The skin of the cherry is removed, but some of the sticky mucilage — the "honey" — is left on the bean during drying. The amount of mucilage retained determines whether you have a yellow, red, or black honey. Our Esencia de Victoria is a honey process with moderate mucilage retention, adding sweetness and body without the intense fruitiness of a natural. The result is hibiscus brightness, raspberry sweetness, and a brown sugar finish that coats the palate gently.
Chris Rosas named this coffee "Esencia de Victoria" — Essence of Victory — after the farm owner, Victoria, who cultivated and isolated the Pink Bourbon plants over years of patient observation. Calling her work a victory is an understatement. It is a masterpiece.
