Colombia El Sendero Mosto Washed

About the Coffee

Andrés Martinez grew up in Colombia's coffee-growing regions and trained as a biochemical engineer before returning to work in coffee full time. He now owns two farms in Cauca and runs cherry collection points across Nariño and Cauca, where producers bring their fruit to be processed under consistent, controlled conditions. El Sendero, the farm this coffee comes from, sits at 2,000 meters above sea level in Aponte, Nariño, and grows the Caturra variety.

The processing here is called mosto washed, and the mosto part refers to active fermentation liquid that Andrés adds to the tanks. After hand-harvesting and floating the cherries to sort out lower-density fruit, he ferments them whole in closed tanks with that active mosto for 48 hours. The cherries are then depulped (the skin and fruit removed) and fermented again in closed tanks for another 24 hours. After fermentation, the coffee dries on raised beds in three stages, with sun exposure increasing every five days over a 15-day total drying period. Andrés's background in biochemical engineering shapes how he approaches fermentation: the process is intentional and measurable, not something left to chance.

About Ethica Coffee Roasters

Ethica Coffee Roasters takes its name from the 17th-century philosopher Spinoza's Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata, a work about aligning actions with reason and values. That framing carries into how they source: they look for relationships with producers and try to tell the stories behind the farms they work with, rather than treating origin as a label.

Their sourcing focuses on hand-picked specialty green coffee, and their roasting approach is built around letting the natural qualities of each bean come through rather than imposing a house style across the board.

"There is an Ethica coffee that stands out in my mind - a Washed Castillo from Wilton Benitez that had rosemary as a tasting note. Yes, rosemary. I remember looking at that tasting note in disbelief, and then experiencing about the same disbelief by how much I loved the rosemary flavour!"

- Dean, Director of Coffee