Wilton Benitez Striped Bourbon

A new variety from one of our most talked about coffee producers: a striped bourbon! This is first time JBC has ever featured the striped bourbon variety and coming from Wilton Benitez it certainly does not disappoint. It’s creamy, juicy, and boasts so many lovely fruit and floral notes like candied mango, guava, peach candy, white tea, rose, orange, and candied banana. It’s another coffee that knocks it out of the park from a producer who is creating waves in the coffee industry with his immaculate coffee and unique processing innovation.

The striped bourbon variety is a field variation of the Bourbon variety where the coffee cherry has visible orange stripes running through it. When isolated out on the farm level, these coffee cherries prove to be unique from their red bourbon counterparts. They boast the same level of sweetness (thanks to the higher sucrose level of the bourbon variety) with unique tropical fruit and orange overtones. Couple that with Wilton’s innovation processing at the farm level, and you get another truly magical coffee.

The unique process at the farm level. Wilton Benitez is at the forefront of innovation in coffee processing and is doing amazing things to create unique and masterful flavors. He is a chemical engineer turned high-end coffee grower and his science background, coupled with decades of experience in coffee growing/tasting, have led to some of the most unique and nuanced coffees we’ve experienced. Selectively harvested ripe cherries are first sterilized with ozonated water in a chamber that also separates the coffee cherry based on bean size and removes foreign material. The coffee is then sterilized with ultraviolet and a separator further works to rid the lot of any unripe cherries. This particular lot then underwent a thermal shock treatment while in cherry form where it was hit first with hot water and then with cold water. During this phase there are numerous biochemical changes occurring in the coffee, impacting flavors and the next fermentation stages. Our founder Michael, who recently spent a week at Wilton’s farm, also added that “during this stage when the coffee cools, it absorbs the flavors of the mucilage. This stage is unique because it doesn’t lead to over fermented flavors but instead just the clean, sugary flavors of the mucilage.” This coffee next undergoes an anaerobic yeast fermentation in cherry in bioreactors. Next, the coffee is depulped and after this, a second thermal shock treatment takes place. Then a second double anaerobic yeast fermentation also takes place after which the coffee seeds are gently washed, stopping the fermentation and getting the seeds ready for drying. The coffee then undergoes controlled drying in ecological drying chambers until the beans reach 10.5% internal humidity.