TIM WENDELBOE - Finca Tamana Bourbon | Colombia - Washed - Red & Pink Bourbon (Ethiopian)

Tim Wendelboe Coffee Roasters is located in Oslo, Norway

From Tim Wendelboe

These Bourbon & Ethiopian Pink Bourbon cultivars are among the best coffees currently being produced at Finca Tamana. As with all coffees we buy from Elias, this Bourbon is super clean and sweet with a delicate fruity and subtle floral profile.

We planted these seeds of red Bourbon together with Bellanid and Elias in June 2014 and the trees were planted in a small hill at Finca Tamana in August 2015. At the same time Elias had gotten a handfull of seeds from a neighbour of some pink Bourbon (which actually has Ethiopian genetics). The difference is the red and pink colour of the coffee cherries when they are ripe but they also taste slightly different in the cup where the pink one is slightly more floral and the red one is slightly more fruity. 

I am very happy that so far it is one of the best coffees we have tasted from Tamana. In fact Bourbon are among my all time favourite coffee cultivars but they need to be grown in good conditions to taste great. Fortunately Tamana seems to be a place where Elias and Bellanid can produce really tasty Bourbon coffees and I have encouraged them to plant more of it so that we can buy more of this delicious and juicy coffee in the future.    

Bourbon is one of the most genetically important C. arabica cultivars in the world as many newer cultivars like Caturra, Mundo Novo, Villa Sarchi and Pacas descend from Bourbon. It was introduced from Reunion Island (former Bourbon Island) to Brazil around 1860 and quickly spread all over Central- and South-America. Bourbon is a tall plant with low yields but has potential to produce very high quality coffee. Unfortunately it is susceptible to leaf rust which is part of the reason why most Bourbon trees in Colombia and other countries have been replaced with the Bourbon dwarf mutation Caturra and later with resistant hybrid cultivars like Castillo and Variedad Colombia.