TIM WENDELBOE - Finca Tamana Espresso | Colombia - Washed - Castillo Tambo

Tim Wendelboe Coffee Roasters is located in Oslo, Norway

From Tim Wendelboe

Castillo is an intense and sweet coffee with flavours of herbs, dark chocolate and subtle notes of red fruit.

This particular Castillo comes from the regional selection named Tambo. There are several different types of Castillo and this is one of three types being produced at Tamana.  I have been fortunate to be able to taste many of the different Castillo selections over the years and in my opinion the one that has been consistently tasting better than the rest is the Castillo Tambo. It can sometimes have a delicate floral flavour in addition to the well known sweet, chocolate, caramel, herbal and fruity flavours you typically find in these hybrid coffees.  

Castillo is the advanced variedad Colombia hybrid developed by the Colombian research organisation Cenicafe. The researchers spent over 30 years breeding this cultivar that is resistent to leaf rust and has potential to produce a very good cup quality. Since it’s launch a few years ago, Colombia experienced a huge outbreak of leaf rust, but most farmers recovered in record time as the Colombian coffee growers federation helped supporting them with new Castillo seedlings to replace the traditional susceptible cultivars like Bourbon and Caturra. It means that over 60% of the coffee grown in Colombia today is Castillo cultivars.

But what about the cup quality? There has been a lot of scepticism among the quality driven coffee professionals and a fear that the tasty Caturra will be replaced by an inferior hybrid like Castillo. A lot of coffee tasters  say that in general the hybrids can have a slight more herbal aftertaste, which can be true, but we have found that when the cherries are picked fully ripe at a deep purple colour, the herbal flavours are tamed and you tend to get more sweetness and fruity flavours in the cup. It all boils down to how you harvest, process and roast the coffee and of course how healthy the coffee trees were during production.