COSTA RICA - Aquiares
Regular price £7.60
Unit price per
The Flavour Profile
This finely crafted coffee is expertly roasted to highlight its rich flavors of dark chocolate, orange, and praline. Its medium body makes it ideal for any brewing method and an excellent choice for any time of day..
The Little Details
This coffee comes from the Aquiares farm in Aquiares in the region of Turrialba in Costa Rica. It's grown 800 to 1400 metres above sea level and is fully washed then dried for 32 hours at 45 to 55 degrees. It's 100% Caturra varietals of coffee beans.
About the Process
All Aquiares coffee is picked by hand to ensure consistent high quality. Microlots, such as this one, are picked by a special team of skilled harvesters who are paid well above the daily rate for their exceptional skill in picking the ripest cherries at each pass. Each tree is visited up to seven times during the harvest to ensure that only fully red ripe cherries are picked. The skilled hands of the pickers represent the farm’s most valuable asset. Pickers hail from the community of Aquiares, nearby towns, and even from the neighbouring contry of Nicararagua and Panama. The farm ensures that all workers have a safe work enviroment and a confortable place to leave. Workers coming from further away can live in on-site and use a childfren's day-care. The farm sponsors doctors visits for pickers and their famililies twice a week where nutricional health advise is also given. To take better care of its field workers , Aquiares has established first of its kind physical therapy sessions and also daily warm-up routine of exercise before work. Many pickers return each year, confirming success is providing a secure home in Aquiares.
As coffee cherries comes from the field the same day that they are picked, they move to Aquiares own wet mill. The fully washed lots are floated for density (with all floaters being removed) before being pulped using the mill’s Penagos DCV 306 pulper to remove the fruit. Next, the coffee is pulped again using a "Penagos Delva" to remove the mucilage. Before being sent to the Gaurdiolas to dry, Pre-drying is completed in a "Centriflux" machine to remove any excess water. The coffee is then dried for around 32 hours at a low, constant temperature of approximately 45˚C - 55 ˚C in mechanical driers (Gaurdiolas). 2-hour breaks are given to the coffee to ensure consistent drying. Finally, the coffee is rested for a month in large silos to allow humidity and aromas to settle. Finally, the beans return to the dry mill where the parchment is removed, and the beans are sorted by size, weight, density, and colour before they are bagged for export.