About the Coffee

Hand selection; only ripe cherries are hand-picked from the tree. Selection continues by submerging whole cherries into water tanks and removing floating beans (the so-called flotes). This ensures that only the finest cherries undergo the fermentation process. Before processing itself, these sorted and washed cherries are sanitized with ozone—a step that reduces unwanted microorganisms to a minimum. Following fermentation, the next critical step is the drying process, which preserves the bean. If coffee is dried too quickly or aggressively, it loses stability. At Nogales, fermented microlots are dried gently for up to 21 days until reaching an ideal moisture level between 10% and 12%. Because the team at Nogales focuses on sustainable coffee cultivation, wastewater management is another key process. The farm operates its own facility for processing and purifying wastewater.
Processing Steps:
Harvesting and Floating: Ripe coffee cherries are carefully selected and hand-picked, then submerged in water to separate defective or unripe cherries.
Fermentation and Washing: Cherries undergo fermentation for 24 hours and are subsequently thoroughly washed.
Drying and Depulping: The beans are sun-dried on traditional raised beds and then hulled to remove the parchment layer. Only the resulting green coffee is used.
Hot Water Bath: Green coffee beans are submerged in a hot water bath at 40 °C for 4 hours. This step is repeated in two consecutive cycles.
Addition of Natural Solvent: A natural solvent (mosto) derived from coffee cherry pulp or skins is added, and the beans are left to soak for 24 hours.
Coffee Washing: After soaking, the beans are meticulously washed to remove all residual material.
Drying: The washed coffee is dried for approximately 5 days.