Aquiares - Costa Rica - Filter - Anaerobic Natural Coffee

TASTE NOTES
Sticky Dates, Cranberry, Malt Whisky

VARIETAL
H1 Centroamericano F1 Hybrid

PROCESS
Anaerobic Natural

ALTITUDE
1200 masl

We are always thrilled to have coffees from Aquiares Estate in Costa Rica as we have known Diego Robelo for several years now, first meeting him when he came to visit us at our Roastery. Our head Roaster Tim has also travelled with him in Colombia whilst visiting farms in Antioquia. This year we managed to visit Diego at his farm which he now manages after taking over from his father Alfonso.

Aquiares to us, is a perfect model for large scale coffee farming. Diego’s father evolved the farm into a community, with a 200 strong workforce and provided affordable homes. Diego has carried this on recently making the farm carbon neutral and regularly welcomes researchers to the farm to conduct agricultural and environmental studies.

This particular varietal was specially selected for Anaerobic Natural processing due to it’s high mucilage content providing a plethora of sugars which is perfect for this processing technique. The cherries are first rinsed and then placed in a stainless steel tank with a one-way air valve. Fermentation begins between the coffee and the micro-organisms and yeast that lie on the skins of the cherries. It takes around 2 hours for all of the oxygen to be pushed out of the tank, which creates an anaerobic environment that is maintained for 24 hours. After this, the cherries are washed and dried on layered beds in a solar dryer.