Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/1469697
36 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 3, 2022 (June / July) By Gordon Feller A process called bio-innovation is at the heart of La Palma & El Tucan, a unique Colombian coffee producer. A few years ago the farm's co-founders – Felipe Sardi and Elisa María Madriña – recognized that the microbial diversity within their natural environment represented a unique business opportunity. Bio-Innovation is a fermentation technology which was developed, over time, at La Palma & El Tucan. It is the result of what Elisa calls "respecting and learning from the conditions of the ecosystem to which these microorganisms are adapted". Felipe says that, by capturing and reproducing microorganisms found in the farm's biodiverse forests, they can, "use them to inoculate and decompose organic matter. We honor the principles of organic farming to create a microbial-rich compost that serves as our own fermentation substrate, adding our terroirs' unique personality into a natural process, balancing out genetics and fermentation". After the fermentation process, Bio-Innovation remove the substrate, along with the leftovers. La Palma & El Tucan. then reuses both materials as food for their coffee trees, thus creating an entirely closed cycle. Every time the farm begins a coffee fermentation process, they trigger a process of acidification and disintegration in the sugars. They break up the pectin molecules found in the coffee mucilage. Felipe says that, "as micro-organisms feed on these sug- ars to produce ethanol, organic acids, and carbon dioxide, there is a decrease in Brix levels, an indicator of the sugar content of the coffee mucilage. This is eventually fully removed, and that results in a decrease in PH levels - which marks a higher acid con- centration". Bio-Innovation controls two very complex variables within the farm's fermenta- tion processes: Colombia Coffee Innovators: La Palma & El Tucan Through the Bio-Innovation process, La Palma & El Tucán honors the main principles of organic farming. Bacteria make up to 90% of all typically found microbes in a gram of compost.