A vibrant, tropical juice box of a coffee. This castillo comes from Edinson Argote’s family farm, Quebraditas, where a carefully controlled 60-hour fermentation with a specially selected yeast brings out an intense expression of tropical fruit. We’ve paired it with a washed lot from Mustefa Abakeno’s Beshasha washing station in Jimma, Ethiopia, adding lively acidity and balance to the cup. The result: passionfruit, tropical fruit and summer berries.
This is our second coffee from Edinson Argote from the 2025/26 Colombian harvest, following the blueberry co-fermented Caturra that we’re releasing alongside this coffee.
Edinson’s path into coffee began at a buying station in Acevedo, Huila, where he worked alongside his cousin loading and unloading coffee. His fascination with flavour and coffee quality led him into sensory training and eventually to a role as Head of Quality at one of Colombia’s pioneering specialty coffee producers.
He later returned home to establish Quebraditas with his family, bringing this experience back to his own farm. Today, Edinson focuses on cultivating distinctive varieties and experimenting with carefully controlled processing methods, using fermentation as a tool to develop different expressions from the coffee he grows. This castillo is a particularly vivid example of that approach.
Our Ethiopian component comes from Mustefa Abakeno, a producer and exporter based in Beshasha, in western Ethiopia’s Jimma Zone. Mustefa established the Beshasha washing station in 2018 after obtaining an export licence that allowed him to sell coffee directly to international buyers. The station processes coffee from his own farm alongside cherries from neighbouring producers.
Since then, Mustefa has expanded his operation, acquiring four additional coffee collection points and washing stations in the surrounding area. This allows more neighbouring farmers to deliver their cherries locally, while Mustefa and Falcon Coffee’s agronomist team have also been working together to improve both coffee quality and long-term farm productivity.
Edinson uses fermentation as a tool to transform the character of the castillo, creating the intensely tropical fruit profile expressed in the cup.
Ripe cherries are selectively harvested and floated to remove underripe and overripe fruit. They then undergo 24 hours of oxidation in a food-grade plastic drum before being pulped to remove the fruit surrounding the seed.
The pulped coffee is fermented for 60 hours at temperatures below 25°C, with a specially selected wine yeast added to guide the fermentation. Following fermentation, the coffee is washed to halt microbial activity and preserve the desired flavour profile.
The coffee is then mechanically dried for 76 hours at an average temperature of 38°C, until it reaches the target moisture content.
The Ethiopian component is processed using a more traditional washed method. Hand-picked cherries are first floated in water to remove defective, underripe and overripe fruit. The remaining cherries are pulped and fermented for 8–12 hours before being washed in channels.
The coffee is then dried on raised beds for 7–10 days. During the hottest part of the day, approximately 11am–2pm, shade netting is used to slow the drying process and encourage more uniform drying.
Our relationship with Edinson is part of a longer connection with Colombian producer and importer Jonny Martinez. We first met Jonny over Zoom in May 2024, when we learned more about his family’s approach to coffee farming and his plans to bring Colombian coffees to the UK. That year, we purchased a caturra from Jonny’s own family farm, El Jaragual, which we continue to buy each harvest. In 2025, we purchased our first coffee produced by Edinson, and this year we’ve selected two coffees from his latest harvest — this Castillo and the blueberry co-fermented Caturra being released alongside it.
We purchased Edinson’s coffee through Jonny’s importing company, Mi Café Trading. This lot was harvested between December 2025 and February 2026 and landed in the UK in August 2026.
The Ethiopian component was harvested between October 2025 and February 2026 and arrived in the UK in June 2026. We purchased it through Falcon Coffee, who have worked directly with Mustefa since 2020, supporting improvements in quality and helping bring his coffees directly to the UK.
If you're not sure which coffee is for you, or you want to try them all, then our discovery pack is just what you need.
Shop now
