Summary

A micro-lot from the "La Pastora" region of Tarazzú, prepared according to the particular white honey process. We liked the fresh notes of peach, papaya, lemon, citrus, iced tea, perceived both as espresso and filter.

The Fine Details

The Origin

The micro-lot comes from the micro-region called "La Pastora". La Pastora, located between 1800 and 1900masl and rich in volcanic soil, is one of the most prestigious coffee areas of the beautiful mountains of Tarrazú, Costa Rica, known for offering some of the best Costa Rican coffees.

The Producer

The Montero family has been growing coffee for over three generations. Eli, the grandfather, worked all his life as a coffee grower, and so did his son, Carlos Montero. His passion for coffee flowed in his veins, but it was impossible to ignore the difficulties in the coffee industry. And while Carlos watched his father wrestle in the commercial coffee segment, he decided to seize a new opportunity for himself and eventually gave life to Don Eli Coffees, a micro mill of property that processes only specialty coffees from small plantations in the area. Santa Rosa is one of these. The micro-lot we offer is made up of Catuai variety grains prepared according to the white honey process.

The Process

After harvesting the cherries by hand and having separated only those perfectly ripe, these are firstly rinsed with running water, then dropped into the mill where skin and pulp, the so-called mucilage, are mechanically removed. The beans are then sent to washing tanks by high-pressure water through dedicated pipes. When the coffee reaches the washing tanks, most of the mucilage has been removed, and only a minimum layer of pulp is still adherent to the parchment. This process is called white honey. The well-washed beans are placed over raised beds within greenhouses open at both sides, to ensure proper air circulation and to protect the beans from the rain. They are turned upside down once every hour to ensure homogeneous evaporation. The moisture leaves the beans very slowly, within 10-12 days, to reach a value of 10-10.5%. The parchment is then mechanically removed, and the green beans are vacuum packed into multilayered bags, to preserve and protect them from sudden changes in temperature.

In the Cup

It is a lovely, extremely sweet and citrus coffee, with notes of peach, papaya, lemon, citrus, and iced tea. Very structured, fresh and clean, we liked both extracted as filter and espresso.