Flavour notes: Nectarine, forest berries, and florals. Bright, silky and jammy.
Origin: Costa Rica
Region: West Valley
Farm: Finca Reina Elizabeth
Producer: Marvin Barrantes
Process: Black Honey
Altitude: 1450 - 1550 masl
Varietal: Sarchimor
Green coffee importer: 88 Graines
Bright, silky and jammy - this is exactly the kind of Costa Rican coffee we get ridiculously excited about. We’ve always had a soft spot for coffees from Costa Rica, and this one is another absolute beauty. It comes to us once again through our favourite green coffee supplier, 88 Graines, who somehow always seem to find us something we want to drink all day.
Small farm & Smart processing = Seriously good coffee
This coffee comes from Finca Reina Elizabeth, an eight-hectare farm in Costa Rica’s West Valley, run by producer Marvin Barrantes. It’s a great example of how much can be achieved on a relatively small farm when everything is done with care and attention.
Marvin is seriously hands-on with every part of production. The farm is incredibly well organised, with a clever little wet mill designed specifically for the scale of the operation, beautifully maintained raised drying beds and greenhouses.
The coffee itself is Sarchimor, a hybrid of Villa Sarchí and the Timor Hybrid. It’s a variety known for good productivity and disease resistance, but in the right hands it can also produce some seriously delicious coffees. And Marvin definitely knows what he’s doing.
A Little Black Honey Magic
For this lot, ripe cherries are hand-picked and depulped without using water before being spread across raised African drying beds inside a greenhouse. They’re left untouched for the first three days, allowing fermentation to develop and a layer of mucilage to form around the parchment. After that, the coffee is broken up and turned regularly for another 12–14 days.
All of that careful processing results in a coffee that’s bright, sweet and silky, with juicy nectarine, forest berries and delicate florals. There’s plenty of depth and jammy sweetness, but it still has that clean, balanced character we love so much in great Costa Rican coffees.