This is the second year we have featured this farm, due to its unparalleled quality and flavour profile. Last year we featured the honey processed, this year we went with the natural. It is everything you want out of a natural with none of the qualities you don’t. It is clean, fruity, and boozy.
This is one of the best filter offerings we have had on our menu in a long time.
Region: Central Valley
Farm: Alajueula
Altitude: 1450-1600 masl
Coffee varieties:
Process: Natural
Drying: Raised bed
Cupping notes: Grapefruit, Winey, Cocoa Nibs
Cupping score: 86.5
Oscar and Francisca Chacón are third-generation coffee producers, but the coffee is more than just in their family heritage: It’s in their hearts and souls as well. The couple is committed to quality and innovation, and are among the very first farmers in Costa Rica to produce Honey and Natural process specialty coffee. In 2005, after years of delivering their cherry to a cooperative for the going market price, they decided to join the brand-new “micromill revolution” and buy their own depulper to have more control over the quality and the price they received for their lots. “At first, we didn’t know what we were doing,” Oscar explains. “We were just experimenting.” That experimentation led to some of the most exciting new flavor profiles we have ever tasted: Now, the Chacons produce a wide range of Honey process coffees, modulating the drying time in order to create different effects in the cup. Necessity bred more innovation for the family when an earthquake in 2008 wiped out electricity and water to their area during the harvest. Unable to run the depulpers or to wash the mucilage off to produce Washed lots, Francisca took inspiration from her knowledge of African coffee production and quickly built raised beds on the property.