Luis Arocha<\/a>, the green-coffee buyer for Oxcart Coffee: Cafe Imports Latin America, who is based out of the office in San Jos\u00e9.<\/p>\nTo produce Don Sabino’s Honey coffees, Steven spreads the seeds out on raised beds directly after they are depulped, and then covers them with tarps for two days. After that, they are exposed to the air and sun, and rotated constantly just like the Naturals: The two days under wraps allows them to generate and retain heat to speed the fermentation process, after which they take about 15 days or so to completely dry.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-5.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-4.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Central Valley 3″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
While Steven’s drying beds and bodega for storage are modest and \u201chave a lot of character,\u201d shall we say, he insists on absolutely meticulous picking and sorting, which shows immediately in the even color of the coffee on the dryers and in sacks to rest. To be absolutely sure that the pick will be peak, the Vargas family has hired the same 35 pickers every year for nearly the past decade, mostly indigenous families from Nicaragua.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hire the same amount no matter how the harvest is,\u201d Steven says, and he pays very well compared to many other farmers in the area: This ensure that the pickers will have well-paid work even on a slower year, and so Don Sabino can guarantee that the selection will be as good as ever.<\/p>\n
As he looks over the cherry turning deep purple and raisin-like in the sun, he flashes a winning smile and a big thumbs-up, then points proudly at the two bags’ worth of tiny Mokka that is almost ready to be collected and stored. (He has every reason to be proud: The floral, syrupy smell of the cherries is enough to make us wish it was already in our morning Chemex.)<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-3.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”West Valley” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
West Valley<\/h1>\n
Meticulousness is the continuing theme as we move West toward Naranjo, where Carlos Barrantes and his wife Diana prove year after year that their operation truly is a pearl: La Perla Del Cafe<\/strong> is an 8-year-old micromill the couple started after many years of utilizing the mill works at Carlos’s brother’s famed Herbaz\u00fa, just up the street. In fact, the whole immediate area is a family affair: The Barrantes are a third-generation coffee family, and after Carlos’s father passed away his land was divided among Carlos and his brothers and sisters, most of whom still live and farm within walking distance. (In fact, the main road to access Herbaz\u00fa and La Perla Del Cafe is called Calle Barrantes.)<\/p>\nLike Steven, Carlos hires the same pickers every year: At La Perla, there are 25 indigenous families who come up from the Panama-Nicaragua border every single harvest season. Carlos and Diana stay in touch with the families throughout the year, celebrating milestones with them and asking after their health. The pickers are so exceptional that Carlos doesn’t have a float tank at his mill\u2014he knows to trust the keen eyes and swift hands of the pickers to only select the perfect ripe cherry.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-6.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-7.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”West Valley 2″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
The Barrantes’s obsession with quality and precision is obvious from the mill to the drying greenhouse to the bodega, where it seems not a single bean is out of place. Visitors are often skeptical when they hear the mill is almost 10 years old, since it’s so clean it could have been set up just a few weeks ago. In the greenhouses, staff wear special shoes while raking the parchment coffee, and the lots are separated into nearly perfect rectangles on the floor and on second-level drying shelves, with no space wasted. Last year, this full treatment paid off in spades\u2014or at least in Aces, since we were able to offer two of Carlos’s coffees as limited-edition Aces offerings that scored around 90 points.<\/p>\n
Despite his tremendous success and growing fame as a producer in the West Valley, Carlos is still one of the softest-spoken and unbraggardly producers we’ve met. \u201cCoffee is not only the tip of an arrow, it’s also a cycle,\u201d he says through green-buyer’s associate Francine Ramirez, who recently translated for a group of roasters visiting from the U.S.A. \u201cThe pickers depend on me, and I depend on you, and you depend on your customers.\u201d In other words, behind every great coffee, there are lots and lots of great coffee people, and we couldn’t agree more.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-8.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-9.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”West Valley 3″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Not far from Calle Barrantes is another multigenerational coffee family who run a micromill: The Aguilera Brothers<\/strong>, a set of past CoE-winning siblings who carry on the tradition by working together to plant, pick, and process coffees from their combined 60 hectares of farmland.<\/p>\nFelipe and Erasmo Aguilera work mostly in the mill and on the drying patios and tarps, where they put the finishing touches on the cherries brought in by truck from high up on Finca Chayote and other nearby plots. There are about 20 varieties sprinkled throughout the family’s primary crop of Villa Sarchi, including Gesha and various different strains of the highly productive and disease-resistant hybrid family of Catimors. (Caturra x Timor Hybrid.)<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-10.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”West Valley 4″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Felipe says the family’s yields this year are nearly half what they got from last year’s crop, and as such they only hired around 35 or 40 pickers as opposed to their usual 100. Erasmo chimes in to describe a unique approach to paying the pickers: The family pays higher prices for green cherry than they do for buckets of red, as a way of incentivizing the pickers to do an exquisite sort when they bring their cherry to be weighed. Because there are areas of the farms that are remote enough that they can’t be accessed as easily or repeatedly, Erasmo and his brothers knew they would have fewer chances to do immediate selective picking for the ripest fruit. This way, this year’s smaller number of pickers make a better wage, the trees are stripped when they need to be to encourage next year’s growth, and the sorting is done with care and attention.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, the brothers head down to the field in a valley just below their micromill, ostensibly to check on the Naturals drying on tarps there, but also to catch the game of futbol the pickers play to finish the day. Though the harvest is relatively small this year, the Aguileras have a good crop and good games to watch\u2014these pickers are clearly dedicated to a job very well done.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Tarrazu” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Tarraz\u00fa<\/h1>\n
Up in the mountains of Tarraz\u00fa, the country’s most famous coffee-growing region, Costa Rica’s largest cooperative, CoopeTarraz\u00fa<\/strong>, is seeing the last dribs and drabs of the area’s harvest, which is delivered by smallholders to 58 receiving stations located where farmer-members live and work. Co-op sensory and green-coffee director Fabian Calderon says that while national production is down, CoopeTarraz\u00fa is having a record-breaking harvest, with about a 10-percent increase in volume of coffee delivered, as membership is growing exponentially. While the organization started with just 228 members, today there are almost 5,000 coffee growers who contribute to the CoopeTarraz\u00fa reputation.<\/p>\nThe co-op primarily deals in Washed coffees, preparing nearly 560 full-container loads (FCL) of the caramel-sweet, sparklingly citric, round-bodied coffees that epitomize the classic Costa Rican profile. The co-op also has a small test farm where they experiment with varieties, inputs, and processing methods, including anaerobic-environment fermentation and a fascinating new technique called \u201cmacerado,\u201d where the coffee is dried as a Natural for a few days on the raised beds before being depulped and finished as a Honey.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-11.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-12.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Tarrazu 2″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Cafe Imports buys both Caf\u00e9 Vida and Community Coffee lots from CoopeTarraz\u00fa, and cupping this year points toward another consistently solid set of midprice and affordable lots with traceability and quality. The sensory-analysis lab here operates 24 hours a day, as every lot, every load in the driers, every sample intended for a buyer gets roasted and cupped for quality control. According to Fabian, last year there were no quality claims filed by any of the co-op’s importer or roaster customers, which is quite a feat considering the sheer tonnage of coffee that passes through the depulpers or 34 mechanical driers here.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-13.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Tarrazu 3″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
In stark contrast to the epic volume of Washed coffees put out by CoopeTarraz\u00fa, Mart\u00edn Ure\u00f1a’s 7 hectares of coffee farm and La Chumeca Micromill<\/strong> produce a tiny but fantastic load of Natural coffees every year. The drying beds at La Chumeca are almost unreal in their uniformity and precise selection: There doesn’t seem to be a single defect among the perfectly drying cherry. Mart\u00edn and his brother Edgar, who owns El Pilon<\/strong> farm and micromill just a few yards down the slopes, prefer to work with Naturals not only because of the profile, but also because the equipment they need to do an outstanding job is quite simple and affordable. The brothers have rigged up a floating station that is incredibly efficient and cost them almost nothing: They use it to separate broken, damaged, and unripe cherry before moving the coffee to the beds, and the accuracy of their technique is immediately obvious when a visitor looks over the drying coffee.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-18.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-17.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Tarrazu 4″ _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Like CoopeTarraz\u00fa, however, Mart\u00edn is also experimenting with anaerobic-environment fermentation: This year he built a separate processing station for these types of coffees, using rice-fermentation tanks he imported from Taiwan. Mart\u00edn will select particular small lots to process this way, and will take sugar readings of the fruit using a Brix meter. He prefers the \u00b0Bx to be around 25\u00b0, at which point he seals the cherry into the tanks for 48, up to 72 hours, depending on follow-up Brix readings. He siphons off the liquid that’s created during the process and distills it into a kind of coffee moonshine that has a heavenly syrup and tastes distinctly pulpy. Meanwhile, the coffee is removed once the \u00b0Bx has gone down to Mart\u00edn’s likings, and is moved to the drying beds near the \u201cregular\u201d Naturals.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00edn and Edgar and their families are also reporting that the crop is down this year, but they are confident that quality will be high. Though in most of their production they are doing things relatively traditionally (they even have 120-year-old dry-milling equipment that still works like a charm), they are also always looking to the future, and it isn’t too soon for them to scheme about what exciting new developments next year’s crop will bring.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Pura Vida” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
\u00a1Pura vida!<\/h1>\n
Thanks to the establishment of Oxcart Coffee as a locally operated export office, we are seeing earlier samples, earlier reports, and choice lots already, and are able to fill the sample roasters and cupping table\u2014and fill producers’ wallets\u2014faster because we’re on the ground.<\/p>\n
From March through May, the Oxcart Coffee offices will be open for hosting roasters and green-buyers interested in making purchasing decisions on the spot in San Jos\u00e9. Our Open Door<\/strong> program allows any customer of Cafe Imports to cup with the Oxcart team on most Fridays until May 10, so be sure to contact your sales representative if you know you’ll be traveling and you’d like to pop in to put some truly delicious stuff on the books for this spring and summer.<\/p>\nAs always, we are looking very forward to the arrival of fresh-crop coffees from some of our closest friends and partners: The Chacons, The Vargas family, the Barrantes, the Aguileras, the Ure\u00f1as, and the communities of CoopeTarraz\u00fa. Of course, this is only a few highlights from the network of relationships the Oxcart team of Luis Arocha and Francine Ramirez have worked so hard to nurture, and we already know there will be more great news from these and many of our other contacts next year.<\/p>\n
\u00a1Pura vida!<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-20.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Costa_Rica_Harvest_Report_2019__-1-14.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While Costa Rica accounts for just about 1 percent of the world\u2019s total coffee volume, it has a huge place in our hearts (and our offerings sheet) at Cafe Imports. In this year\u2019s harvest report, we\u2019ll take a trip around the country’s growing regions with Oxcart Coffee: Cafe Imports Latin America, visiting some of our longest-term producer partners to find out how the 2018\/19 cycle performed, and to get a sneak peek at what fantastic new-crop top lots will be arriving in our international warehouses shortly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":42166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-costa-rica"],"site_id":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cafeimports.com\/north-america\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}