Horsham Coffee Roaster: Costa Rica, La Pastora - Direct Trade, Extended fermentation

This is a bespoke micro-lot that we helped to process and is based on a method of producing washed coffee that we've found to be common in Rwanda and Kenya but seldom found in central and south America.

We are super excited to be sourcing our Costa Rican Tarrazu coffees directly. We source our Costa Rican coffees directly in partnership with Selva Coffee, a small exporter representing a select group of coffee producers that we visited in February 2020.

This stunning washed coffee comes from the La Pastora farm owned by the Montero family. Carlos Montero has been producing fantastic coffees from his own farms for many years and was one of the pioneers of the small independent micro mill. Carlos bought his first farm after saving up working in restaurants in the USA. He first worked as a member of a local co-operative selling coffee cherry to be processed as part of a regional blend. Ten years ago he set up his own mill that now produces fantastic natural, honey, and washed coffees under the family name.

Coffee was hand-harvested from trees at high altitude on the La Pastora farm located at 1900-2000masl. This is one of the highest farms in Costa Rica and benefits from fantastic soil and a stable climate. After harvesting the coffee was transported in the evening to the Don Eli micromill and left to rest overnight for processing the following day.

The bespoke processing method is a time-consuming multi-step process which includes: removing the outer skin of the coffee cherry, dry fermentation for 24 hrs, washing and soaking several times in cold water, drying in shade for 5 days and then sun drying on raised African beds.

This multi stage process is a fairly common method used in countries like Kenya and Rwanda but not typically found in Costa Rica. It's certainly much more labour intensive we has resulted in a wonderfully complex washed coffee that tastes very different to most washed coffees from Costa Rica.