Los Guaduales is a Colombian coffee from the Czech roastery Candycane Coffee that surprises with its intensity and depth in the cup. Tropical and forest fruits blend here with notes of cocoa beans and the fresh citrus notes of mandarin and lemon, complemented by subtle layers of peach and apricot. A subtle winey note and a hint of fermented fruit then round out the entire profile into a cup that is full-bodied, juicy, and immensely distinctive. It is a coffee that bears a clear mark of its processing, yet you can still sense where it comes from.
The coffee comes from Jose Rodriguez’s Finca Los Guaduales, a family farm nestled in the Aceveda hills of the Huila region in southern Colombia, at an elevation of 1,400 meters above sea level. Huila is one of Colombia’s most significant coffee regions, where the combination of altitude, rich biodiversity, and two harvest seasons creates ideal conditions for growing specialty coffee. The lot was created in collaboration with the Cuatro Vientos project, an initiative that connects small-scale Colombian growers, supports them in processing, and helps them bring their microlots to global markets. Cuatro Vientos operates three centers in the Huila region that serve not only as coffee purchasing points but also as service facilities where farmers can dry parchment, use storage silos, and evaluate the quality of their batches in cupping labs. It was precisely this infrastructure that gave Jose Rodriguez the opportunity to experiment and get the most out of the Castillo variety, something that would otherwise have been difficult to achieve.
The coffee undergoes anaerobic natural processing, which plays a key role here. After the ripe cherries are hand-harvested, the fruit is sealed in hermetically sealed tanks, where it ferments without oxygen, which slows down the entire process and allows complex flavor compounds to develop. Once fermentation is complete, the cherries are dried whole on raised beds, with the pulp remaining on the bean throughout the drying process, naturally imparting its sweetness and fruitiness.