What story can a coffee tell? Whatever it wants to. As all things, the voice of coffee needs only to be listened to, and it can be understood.
In the last few years, yeast inoculation, anaerobic fermentation, carbonic maceration, and indeed co-fermentation have become intrinsic to what Colombian coffee is, allowing producers to forge unseen pathways to excellent coffee. With new age techniques, producers all over the country have found ways to transcend the classic washed profiles which brought the drinking world to Colombia many years ago, and defined its offering.
As with age, as with the passing of time, as with the ends of things… Movements, memories, and people can disappear from our collective thoughts. A question must be asked, what can be done to revive them?
Tenfold is happy to now offer a coffee that speaks. Find it in our cafés in the Heights and Downtown, as well as our online store!
Called “Eat a Peach” the Pink Bourbon - Durazno from Jairo Arcila speaks of the revival of Colombian coffee. It is a triple processed coffee from his farm in Armenia, Quindío, Colombia. First anaerobically fermented, it then undergoes osmotic dehydration with wine yeast/powderized peaches/panela syrup, then finally is dried via the honey process.
As alluded, this offering employs cutting edge technique and careful stewardship, which results in a wonderfully expressive coffee brimming with peach flavor, that is balanced by the careful processing that put Colombian coffee on the map before such innovations as were used here.
Our task in presenting this coffee is to speak of what it told us. We must speak of revival. In order to do this, we enlisted our Green Buyer, Christian, to express this through a selection of songs for you to enjoy with this coffee.
Revival - A Guided Playlist
“Every time I’m in Georgia, I eat a peach for peace” - Duane Allman
Those who know may recognize where this coffee’s label got its not-so-subtle inspiration. The Allman Brothers’ album ‘Eat a Peach’ was released in February 1972, mere months after the death of Duane Allman, founding member and lead guitarist for the group. In the wake, the band found a way to revive him, to let his body live into the future, to be remembered. Including live recordings, and tender solo work from Duane, this record did just that. It holds the memory, and transports the man into the cosmos.
In a metaphysical way, I find that Jairo’s coffee represents the movement of Colombian coffee producers. Experimenting with new techniques and technologies to revive the life of such a venerable crop, while remembering the past of coffee excellence in the country, never straying from uplifting the fruit of the tree, and those who pick it.
Below is a compilation of songs which I feel to represent the breadth of what revival can mean. Through this hour of material, I hope you find meaning, and connect to a larger world…
In any case, please enjoy the music, and Eat a Peach!
-
Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group
-
Named for one of the most impactful characters in our literary canon, and featuring Edgar Winter cutting through the arrangement with his ARP 2600 synthesizer.
-
Future Days - CAN
-
CAN were on the cutting edge of young Germans' revival of their culture, in the wake of the shame of the Nazi regime, and the cultural vacuum it brought. The genre referred to as 'kosmische musik' (cosmic music), aims at a future that might be. CAN embodied innovation and experimentation fully.
-
Dancing Blue - Kikagaku Moyo
-
I attended a concert at the Texas Theatre in Dallas on Kikagaku Moyo's final tour. Seated in the decades old auditorium, the atmosphere was idling with reticence until the band performed this song. The audience slowly but surely let themselves loose, lifting from their seats and truly dancing to the front of the room. They remained so, until the final notes rang out.
-
I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same - Sun Kil Moon
-
Sun Kil Moon's lyricism hinges upon the feeling that you're reading a diary entry, heavily influenced by the past, and processing it. Writing a song around watching a live concert movie documenting a band's defining era creates a world wherein lives passed live on in a unique way. A really bare and reflective track.
-
The Landing - Duster
-
An Intermezzo. Slow, soft, and pensive. This band, despite its heyday being in the late 90s and early 2000s, saw a resurgence in 2023 after TikTok ran away with their music. I was shocked not to see aging scenesters, but honest to goodness highschoolers making up such a large portion of the crowd on a recent Duster tour.
-
Bull Believer - Wednesday
-
This band is from Asheville, NC. With that, and their community's continued task of renewal after Hurricane Helene last year, I'm compelled to include them. This track, like #4, references another artist's past, with the lyrical structure based around content of the Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast series around country music legend George Jones (highly recommended listening). The song is full of catharsis, reflection, and by extension revival. Sonically, this is the heaviest, and most raw experience included on this list.
-
I Miss My Dog - Nathan Bowles
-
Taken at face value, the title breathes new life into a friend who's passed. Another artist from North Carolina, Nathan Bowles uses bluegrass/folk music as his medium of expression by embracing the musical history of Appalachia, adapting it to the sensibilities of the day. A really compelling and dynamic instrumental.
-
Road - Nick Drake
-
After another couple of heady and long tracks, we'll end on a couple of short acoustic numbers. Nick Drake's music was reinvigorated by a commercial for the VW Cabrio in the late 90s, which featured the title track of the album where 'Road' resides. Evidenced by a stark resurgence in record sales 25ish years after his death, when the commercial first aired, it presented his enduring work to a whole new generation of listeners.
-
Little Martha - The Allman Brothers Band
-
A simple sweet one to finish. Performed solo by Duane Allman, whose life his band revived by virtue of their work on this coffee's namesake album, Eat a Peach. It served as the closer on that record, and will do the same here. You can hear his soul in this work, which was impressed into hot wax, to be transcribed into memory 50+ years on.