Finca El Fénix was founded by Raw Material, social enterprise coffee importer and long-term partners of Caravan. Raw Material is the brainchild of New Zealand coffee pros Matt Graylee and Richard Corney, and El Fenix was the first big project ever undertaken by the pair, back in 2014. Since inception, the aim of El Fenix has been to support producers in the local community, by offering higher, stable and transparent pricing for coffees, as well as by offering training and support for everything from how to raise rare coffee varietals to advanced processing methods and access to specialty markets.

For this special release, we worked with the team at Raw Material in Colombia to curate a tasting experiment that specifically isolated the impact that processing methods have on coffee's cup characteristics. We did this by selecting just one coffee varietal - the Tabi varietal - grown on the same part of the farm, harvested the same week, and processed three separate ways under the watchful eye of Raw Material's head of operations, the inimitable Miguel Fajardo. 

 Because processing plays such a huge role in coffee’s overall flavour, and flavour is a principal component of quality, processing therefore has a major impact on the final price a coffee receives. For this reason, processing technology is key to improving prices and living standards for farmers globally. With this in mind, our partners at Raw Material have focussed on this subject as one of the most important elements to their education and infrastructure projects, as well as direct services provided to producers. And in Colombia at Finca El Fenix - a farm and community wet mill located in Quindío - Raw Material works with processing in all of these ways.

  Caravan Coffee Roasters are proud members of 1% for the Planet. For more information please visit https://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org

BREWING GUIDE 

A complex and fruit-forward acidity needs a slightly wider brew ratio, and all three of these processes fit that description, in their own unique ways. Try a starting ratio of 60g freshly ground coffee to 1 litre of soft, filtered water, adjusting for size. For more brewing tips and tricks, visit our Brew Guides.