COSTA RICA Valle Central. Grapes, Apple, Chocolate

Country: Costa Rica

Region: Central Valley

Farm: Hacienda Sonora

Variety: Red Catuai 

Process: Honey

Altitude: 1300 masl

Certification: Farm Gate - Direct Trade

 

At Hacienda Sonora, honey processed cherries arehand-picked and a tank is used for floater separation before being pulped in Penagos machinery, keeping 100% of the mucilage. The pulped coffee is then patio dried for 9 days and rests for 3 days at the warehouse at 14% humidity. Afterwards, a mechanical dryer is used for better uniformity at temperatures that never exceed 35C. Once the coffee reaches a humidity of 10.5% it rests in parchment for 2 Months before going through weight, screen, density and color sorting.

Hacienda Sonora Estate has been in Alberto’s family for more than a Century. In the 1970’s when Alberto took over the farm he began planting the majority of the land with coffee and shortly after it became the main source of income. In 1999 with historical low coffee prices Alberto invested in a Mill in order to be able to maximize his quality, in order to do so he became a pioneer in very alternative processing techniques at the time such as Honey and Naturals. Also became a living proof of how different varietals could create different level of complexity in the cup. Nowadays, Sonora has more than 20 different varieties of plants in 80 hectares of coffee (+ 20 hectares of forest reserve) and is known to be a welcoming place for coffee lovers.