Horsham Coffee Roaster: Costa Rica, San Pedro, Washed

This is one of our Relationship Coffees and we are very pleased to welcome back this years San Pedro lot from the Gutierrez family farm in Tarrazu. We've been buying their coffee for 3 years and are always very impressed with the clean, juicy flavours of this very well processed washed microlot.

The Gutierrez family setup their own micro mill in 2009. Up to that point their harvest was delivered to the local co-operative washing station for processing. Setting up their own mill has allowed them to choose how to process the coffee and allowing lot seperation which ultimately results in a better quality product that sells for a higher price. The farming and processing operation is managed by Daniela Gutierrez. Her parents are still very involved in running the farms and her Dad, Jorge takes care of maintenance and coffee tree management.

This microlot was produced from Catura and Catuai cherry grown and harvested on their 2 hecatare 'San Pedro' farm. Coffee is hand harvested and delivered to their own mill for processing. Year on year this plot of land has produced some of their highest scoring coffees due to the unique micro climate, high alitude and careful tree management. Post harvested processing is done using a Penagos eco-pulper. These machines are designed to use less water than most other pulping equipment.

The Penagos eco-pulper can be set to remove varying levels of mucilage. This affects how much fruit is left on the coffee should the producer choose to use fermentation as the next stage or perhaps opt for a honey process. For this lot they chose to remove as much of the mucilage as possible using the eco-pulper and after the coffee was moved directly to drying raised drying tables inside a greenhouse. This helps to diffuse the sunlight and also protects the coffee during the drying stage from moisture.

The results are great and we love the clean balanced flavours that include stone fruit like apricot and peach with a lingering sweetness.