Costa Rica Honey Palmichal Vecindario
Farm Notes
(Credit Sweet Maria's)
This honey lot is a blend of coffees from a few small-producers in the town of Los Santos, Santa Cruz. Most farmers are growing a mix of Caturra and Catuaí cultivars at altitudes ranging from 1500 to 1600 meters above sea level. Farmers "float" the coffee cherry first before delivering to the Palmichal mill where this lot was processed. Floatation is a simple, but effective, grading system where cherries are placed in buckets of water and any under ripe coffee that floats to the top is separated out for lower grades. This is the first line of quality separation, and helps to ensure more uniform ripeness in the top quality coffee. This lot was honey processed, meaning the green coffee seed was dried with some percentage of fruit mucilage intact. It's dried for about a week on cement patios, and then finished in mechanical dryers. This honey process coffee has fairly mild acidity, big, creamy mouthfeel, and yielded exceptional espresso shots, as well as crowd pleasing bittersweet brews in the middle roasts.