Oscar and Francisca Chacon, owners of the now-famous Las Lajas Micromill, are a third generation of coffee growers strongly oriented to quality and innovation. They are undoubtedly best known for being among the first, if not the first, to introduce the honey process in Costa Rica.

Las Lajas has adopted the honey process starting in 2008 after an earthquake had caused damages and interruptions to the channels supplying water to the mill. Oscar knew that in Brazil and Ethiopia so-called natural and pulped techniques were used for coffee processing, so he experimented with such processes on the crop that same year.

Since then, harvesting and processing are supervised with great care by Oscar and Francisca: during the harvest, the sugar content of the cherries is continuously measured with a Brix refractometer to verify the degree of ripeness, and the hand-picking begins when the value reaches a predetermined objective (22°) only. Different varieties ripen with different colors: the use of the refractometer helps to achieve a more uniform maturation, which is essential for the production of high-quality specialty natural and honey coffees.

Oscar also believes the drying curve has a fundamental impact on the coffee flavor, similar to what happens during roasting where the temperature profile heavily influences the sensory characteristics of each specialty coffee. At Las Lajas specialty coffee drying is therefore very slow and sought after, which means that production is necessarily limited.

The microlot we are offering has been processed as Black Honey: 100% mucilage left on, coffee turned only once per day, with the aim of obtaining a particularly intense, sweet and fruity aromatic profile.

The result in the cup fully reflects these objectives: it is a very sweet and winey coffee, with lovely pink grapefruit acidity and intense tactile sensations. It is rich in fruity notes as plum and red orange, caramel, and delicate floral notes.

 Minimum resting period: 10 days from roast date for espresso extractions, 3 days for filter extractions.