For our first Brewed x Conscious collaboration, we headed straight to the pick & mix counter. We’ve paired a vividly expressive co-fermented lot from El Vergel Estate in Tolima, Colombia — Caturra and Colombia varieties fermented with wine yeast and watermelon — with a bright, washed Caturra from producers in El Diamante village in northern Peru. Together, they’re playful and candy-like in the best way, with notes of watermelon and berry sweets.
The Colombian component was cultivated by producers in Tolima and Huila, then transported to and processed at El Vergel Estate in Tolima. The estate is run by Martha, Shady, and Elias Bayter, who began producing coffee in 2015. Since 2017, they have focused on developing fermentation techniques, researching yeasts and bacteria to better guide flavour development, and refining processing methods to produce distinctive profiles. This lot brings vivid watermelon and strawberry candy notes to the blend.
The El Diamante component comes from a small group of producers — Deiner Quispe, Daniel Núñez, and Roger Chilcón — whose farms sit between 1700–1850 masl around the village of El Diamante in the San José de Lourdes district of northern Peru. In 2023 and 2024, we visited El Diamante to better understand its people, coffee, and culture, and we’ve built close working relationships with several coffee professionals there in the years since. This lot brings structure and balance to the blend, with notes of forest fruits and a blackberry-like acidity.
In Colombia, whole cherries were first fermented for 48 hours before being depulped. The coffee was then fermented for five days in an anoxic environment with wine yeast and watermelon, allowing the sugars and introduced cultures to influence flavour development. It was subsequently dried in mechanical dryers for around 10 days.
In El Diamante, each producer followed a similar washed process. Cherries were selectively harvested and fermented in plastic sacks for 36 hours, before being depulped. The seeds were then fermented for a further 72 hours and dried on raised beds in covered, tunnel-style structures for 25–30 days.
We first met Elias Bayter at a presentation and cupping last year and were keen to work together soon after. We purchased the Colombian component directly from the Bayter family’s export company, Forest Coffee; it arrived in the UK in January 2026.
This is our fourth year sourcing coffee from El Diamante village. This lot was harvested between July and September 2025 and arrived in the UK in January 2026. We agreed the parchment price with Collective Bean and worked with them to coordinate milling (removal of the parchment layer), preparation, and export.
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