Variety: 

Region: Zarcero, West Valley

Farm: Maria Elena Castro

Elevation: 5750 feet

Process: natural and pulped natural

Tasting notes: cashew, lemon drop, buttercream

 

This sublime and nicely balanced Costa Rican coffee comes to us from a small lot of Villa Sarchi cultivar grown by Maria Elena Castro on her Finca Danto farm and milled by her and her son at their own micro-mill in the extreme elevations of Costa Rica’s West Valley coffee growing region. The result is a refreshingly clean and refined cup with many pleasing and subtle attributes indicative of stellar washed Central American coffees in general and Costa Rican coffees in particular.

 

Maria Elana and her son, Luis Salazar, opened their Beneficio Monte Brisas Danto mill in 2011 to be able to control quality from planting through processing. This lot began with cultivating the natural dwarf mutation of the Bourbon variety native to Costa Rica, Villa Sarchi, and “eco-pulped” using revolving drums and pressurized water calibrated to remove as much of the skin and pulp of the cherry as possible without using fermentation tanks, requiring dramatically less water and resulting in a very thin layer of mucilage left on the bean. Along with being a native cultivar, this traditional Costa Rican way of wet processing, known as “white honey,” helps make this lot of Monte Brisas Danto a quintessential, clean and bright Costa Rican coffee.

 

In the cup, the combination of top end lemony citrus, nuttiness in the middle, and sweet creamy low end reminds us of the much-loved Guatemala El Bosque we carried a few years ago.  The overlay of lemon in this case, though, is not only in its acidity, but also in its aromatics. I was reminded of the Lemonhead candy I enjoyed at the movie theatres as a child. Others mentioned lemon curd and lemon drop (when asked the drink or the candy, they replied “both.”). The lemony quality, though pervasive, is more a high accent to a definite cashew nuttiness at the heart of the flavor profile. The cup delivers a soft buttery mouthfeel and medium body, carrying the feel and flavor of buttercream icing that becomes more pronounced toward the finish.

 

We are thrilled to offer this Costa Rica single origin as a stellar iteration of a traditional washed Central American coffee profile and trust you will enjoy.

 

Farmer:  Maria Elena Castro

Region: Zarcero, West Valley

Cultivar: Villa Sarchi

Elevation: 5750 feet 

Process: mechanically washed, sun-dried on raised beds

Tasting Notes: cashew, lemon drop, buttercream