Cost Rica – Aquiares Estate

Region: Turrialba

Producer: Diego Robelo

Farm: Aquiares Estate

Variety: F1 Hybrids – Centroamericano, Esperanza and Mariana

Process: Washed

Drying: Patio

Cupping notes: Chocolate, Sugarcane, Red Apple

Cupping score: 85

The name Aquiares means “land between rivers” in the Huetar indigenous language, and Aquiares Estate is commonly referred to as “Aquiares Coffee and Community.” The farm was founded in 1890, Alfonso Robelo is the man responsible for its transformation a century later. Alfonso arrived in Costa Rica in the 1980s seeking refuge from the civil war in Nicaragua, where he was politically active. When politics soured into violence,  he fled the country to keep his family and himself safe after receiving several threats to his life.

Once in Costa Rica, Alfonso began building the Aquiares community on the enchanting slopes of the Turrialba volcano. Alfonso saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the company by having people feel pride in the coffee they produce. He evolved the farm into a small town where workers purchased their own homes. Today, Aquiares remains a model of sustainable agriculture.

Nowadays Alfonso’s son, Diego, manages the farm. Under his lead, the farm has taken a fresh approach to specialty coffee and explored the farm’s potential. Through excellent agricultural management, embracing new varieties, and experimenting with processing, Aquiares has become a trailblazer among specialty coffee producers in Costa Rica and all Central America.

Aquiares focuses on carbon neutrality and measures its greenhouse gas emissions to calculate its carbon emissions against its offsets. An agent verified under the International Panel on Climate Change verifies these calculations and Aquiares’ carbon measurement and emissions reduction are part of Costa Rica’s Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action.