In Ukraine, almost everyone already knows the genius and mission-driven innovator behind new processing methods—Wilton Benítez. He has been producing specialty coffee for nearly 30 years. He is a truly versatile professional: he can roast coffee, evaluate it as a processing Q-grader, and is a real expert in every stage—growing, processing, and roasting.

He produces coffee on two farms that are part of his own project, Varietales Finos. These farms are also well known in Ukraine as Granja Paraíso 92 and La Macarena.

Working in cooperation with other renowned Colombian professionals—Edinson Argote, Wilder Lazo, and others—he has been a pioneer of unique processing methods since 2019. The revolutionary thermal shock with yeast addition is something truly distinctive in the coffee industry. Many baristas have become coffee champions using his coffees, including in Ukraine.

This Red Bourbon lot is processed using Thermal Shock, which Wilton in Colombia describes as “washed advanced processing.” First, the harvested cherries are washed with ozonated water and disinfected with UV light. Then the cherries are fermented for 48 hours, with the yeast Saccharomyces pastorianus added during this stage. After fermentation, the cherries are depulped, and the fermented pulp is saved for the next fermentation phases. The depulped beans are then fermented for 68 hours together with the coffee cherry pulp. After that, the beans are rinsed with cold water and dried in mechanical dryers at 38°C.

This yeast-driven process makes the coffee extremely bright, while drying the beans separately from the whole cherries helps keep the cup very clean and juicy. The result is an exceptional, distinctive coffee with tropical fruit notes.