Costa Rica La Minita Estate Can Costa Rican Coffee Be Brewed with Pour-Over?

Professional coffee knowledge exchange, more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

La Minita: Excellence in Costa Rican Coffee

La Minita International Coffee Export Company takes its name from the flagship Hacienda La Minita estate in Costa Rica's Tarrazu region. In addition to the Costa Rican flagship estate, La Minita also offers green coffee beans from various producing regions worldwide. La Minita vertically integrates their farms and processing plants across different locations, ensuring consistent and stable quality and flavor in their coffee. They focus on staff in world-class producing regions and origins to ensure that coffee meets La Minita's high export standards.

Dota: A Distinct Micro-region

Dota is an independent small micro-region within Tarrazu, situated at a considerable distance from other Tarrazu coffee tree growing areas. Therefore, different climate conditions, topography, and unique soil make Dota region's beans present flavors quite different from those of the Tarrazu region.

Hacienda La Minita: Terroir and Cultivation

Hacienda La Minita is located within Costa Rica's famous Tarrazu producing region. Due to the excellent geographical environment and microclimate within the estate, La Minita's beans demonstrate more balanced and aromatic flavors compared to other Tarrazu coffees. Although there are variations in altitude and temperature within the estate, fortunately, the large river surrounding the estate creates a cooling effect that minimizes these differences. Additionally, the farm faces west, allowing for slow warming in the morning and gradual cooling in the evening. This unique geographical environment creates exceptionally favorable conditions.

The approximately 680-acre La Minita estate cultivates four varieties of coffee trees: Caturra, Caturra red, Caturra yellow, and Hibridoru. After years of experimental statistical analysis and cupping quality tests, La Minita estate decided to primarily adopt the Caturra variety while continuously retaining a small amount of the old Hibrido variety. Although La Minita plants about 2,500 coffee trees per acre, they still determine planting quantities based on geographical regional characteristics and coffee tree species.

La Minita estate currently cultivates approximately 1.7 million trees in total. La Minita employs a 5-year rotation elimination system. After three pruning cycles (15 years), the coffee tree resources are nearly depleted, at which time La Minita will transplant new trees from their own coffee nursery. The nursery is located in a well-protected area within the estate, where new trees planted in the nursery will grow for one year before being transplanted to the production farm.

La Minita uses fast-growing, broad-leaved "Pror" trees as coffee shade trees. These trees are planted at different densities depending on the sunlight requirements and temperature control needs of the production area, and are adjusted according to demand. All estate soils undergo soil testing twice a year, and based on the test results, fertilization decisions are made. Fertilization occurs approximately three times a year, done out of economic and environmental considerations.

Sustainable Cultivation Practices

At La Minita estate, the climate and altitude significantly limit pest populations. Besides not using pesticides, the most important factors are considerable planting and weeding techniques. In the La Minita estate, no pesticides are used, and fortunately, due to the geographical advantages of the estate that create specific climate and altitude conditions, pest populations are significantly limited. Most importantly, through careful cultivation and weeding techniques, La Minita grows strong and healthy coffee trees. The small number of pests does not cause significant damage to the coffee trees.

As the rainy season comes to an end, the coffee cherries begin to mature. Green coffee cherries start to turn red or yellow. The maturation of coffee cherries is very slow and uneven, unlike the rapid and consistent flowering. Therefore, harvesting work must be handled more carefully. Ripe cherries are harvested first, while unripe fruits remain on the tree for later harvesting. The fruits from a single coffee tree may be harvested up to 5 times by La Minita depending on maturity. The harvest season ends after the final picking, around late February. After the harvest season, all coffee fruits, whether ripe or unripe, are picked to prepare the coffee trees for the next year's production.

Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee suggests brewing parameters:

Pour-over: V60 dripper, small Fuji R440 grind 3.5, water temperature around 90°C

French press recommended grind is 4, water temperature 90°C

Siphon recommended grind is 4, water temperature between 90°C-91°C

AeroPress recommended grind is 3.5, water temperature 90°C

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473