What are the flavor notes of Costa Rica Alajuela's "Adobe Brick Farm" honey-processed coffee beans?

A deep look at Finca Las Lajas, Costa Rica's honey process, and the raisin natural method that made the estate famous.

What Is the Flavor of the Honey-Processed Beans from Adobe Brick Farm in Alajuela, Costa Rica?

Across Central America, washed processing remains the norm, but natural beans are increasingly common, and the honey process, often written as miel process, has grown steadily more popular. That trend began in Costa Rica. Today the country has developed what people call a micro mill revolution. The spirit of the micro mill is to give every small Costa Rican farm its own processing capability, so that from harvest to processing to bagging everything is handled on the farm without outside help, letting each producer work the beans in the way that suits them best, reaching the highest quality and earning a better return. The trade-off is responsibility: small farms must own the coffee they produce and process.

The dried honey mucilage that remains on the surface of the bean appears yellowish-brown, and this way of working is what gives honey processing its name.

Finca Las Lajas, the Adobe Brick Farm, sits on the volcanic foothills of Costa Rica's Central Valley at roughly 1300-1500 meters. Coffee grows under the shade of large trees, and this is a typical micro mill small farm, where production is scarce and precious. After 2000, the farm began converting to organic cultivation, a decision its owners believed was good for the environment and for the family's health. Converting to organic takes 3-5 years for the pesticides and chemical fertilizers in the soil to metabolize and disappear. The results proved the choice right, leaving Finca Las Lajas a healthy and beautiful farm.

Premium coffee bags from Costa Rica are all labeled as high-altitude hard organic beans, S.H.B ORGANICO.

Francisca and Oscar Chacón are the third generation to run Las Lajas, which sits in Sabanilla de Alajuela in Costa Rica's Central Valley, on the foothills of Poás Volcano. The Chacón family has grown coffee for over 80 years, going back to their grandfather's generation. In 1995, Oscar's father passed away from cancer, and the family suspected the chemical fertilizers and pesticides used on the farm were to blame. From then on they stopped using toxic chemicals and required every process to follow organic standards for cultivation and fertilization, using self-made organic compost. They extended those standards to soil quality, shade trees, and wet mill procedures, adopting environmentally friendly natural farming with native-tree shade. After five years of organic cultivation, once soil, branch, leaf, and fruit analyses all qualified, Las Lajas became the first estate in Costa Rica to receive organic certification in 2000. It has since passed Japan's JAS, American USDA, and NOP organic certifications.

After earning the costly organic certification, the Chacóns went a step further and began building their own processing plant. Previously they could only send the farm's cherries to large commercial mills and had no control over what happened afterward. Owning their own wet mill made an immediate difference to quality.

Las Lajas was the first estate in Central America to take up honey processing and natural processing. Natural processing is a very traditional method that uses the fewest resources, but because it involves so many uncontrollable variables, doing it well is very difficult. Las Lajas added innovations of its own, such as Francisca using a Brix meter, common in the wine industry, to measure the sugar content of the fruit and set the optimal harvest time and processing method. Only fruit with sweetness above 20% would go to natural processing. For comparison, apples measure 14%, lemons 12%, and passion fruit 18%, but Las Lajas' coffee cherries reach 21-22%.

Las Lajas produces not only natural and honey-processed beans but washed beans as well. Varieties on the farm include Caturra, Catuai, and Villa Sarchi, and small quantities of Kenyan varieties such as SL28 and Obata have been introduced. Although the estate's altitude is not especially high, around 1300-1500 meters, its unusual processing gives Las Lajas a flavor few farms can match.

This natural-processed bean uses the SL28 variety, pushing the flavor of Kenyan SL beans to an extraordinary level.

Innovative Natural Processing: Raisin Natural Processing

In 2008, a severe earthquake struck Costa Rica, and Las Lajas had no water and no electricity for a full week, making washed processing impossible. The workers hired for harvest did not want to stop, since no work meant no pay, and the estate did not want to halt and take losses either, so it decided to handle the fresh cherries as natural. When the batch went to local cuppers, they all said the flavor was completely wrong and could not be sold. Las Lajas was not discouraged and passed the beans to green bean importer Cafe Imports, who loved them. That opened the door for Costa Rica's first natural-processed bean, and Las Lajas became famous overnight, known thereafter for natural and honey processing.

Over the following years, Las Lajas kept experimenting with different natural methods, creating different flavors through different uses of plastic covers for shade and giving them distinctive names, overturning the old negative impression of natural processing. These memorably named methods brought the estate global recognition.

Perla Negra (Black Pearl): cherries are placed on African raised beds in the early morning and turned regularly in the sun until reaching 11.5% moisture content, about two weeks in total.

Alma Negra (Black Soul): cherries go onto African raised beds in the early morning, turned in the sun one day and shaded under plastic covers the next, until reaching 11.5% moisture content, about three weeks in total.

Raisin Natural Processing: combining Black Pearl and Black Soul, the whole process involves shade drying for more than three weeks. First the cherries are spread flat on cement floors inside a greenhouse, piled into hill shapes in the afternoon and covered with plastic for shade, then spread flat again the next morning. After about one to two weeks they are moved to African raised beds under the greenhouse for shade drying. Two sets of these three-tiered beds are used, and the beans cycle through different positions up, down, left, and right each day to dry evenly until processing is complete. The longer fermentation greatly enhances the sweetness and flavor complexity of the beans.

According to green bean importer Shanghai Kunyi, the raisin method was developed by Las Lajas specifically for Korean contestants in barista competitions and unexpectedly became hugely popular in the Korean market. The estate experimented with raisin natural processing on two varieties, Villa Sarchi and SL28, both rare on the farm. SL28 was planted from 2012 and harvested for the first time four years later, in 2016.

This raisin natural-processed bean, roasted as an SOE, is SL28, and under this unusual method the flavor of the SL series is pushed to the extreme.

Bags from micro mill small farms are generally simpler and cleaner in design.

Property Characteristics: Farm Features

Farm Name: Finca Las Lajas

Farmer: Chacón Solano Family

City: Foothills of the Poas Volcano, Los Angeles, Sabanilla de Alajuela

Region: Central Valley

Country: COSTA RICA

Altitude: 1300-1500 meters

Certification: Organic certified

Coffee Characteristics

Variety: Caturra and Catuai

Catuai is a hybrid of Caturra and Mundo Novo. The two varieties share a strong, prominent acidity and a complex taste. The difference is that Catuai can yield abundant harvests year after year with fewer pests and diseases, while its biggest drawback is a low cultivation cost and a lifespan of only 10 years.

Processing System: Honey process. After the skin and pulp are removed, the beans are dried on raised bamboo beds at the drying field, then the parchment is taken off by machine.

Appearance: 17-18 screen

Grade: S.H.B

Top Jury Descriptions: Cupping roast level begins 60 seconds after first crack (Cinnamon)

Aroma/Flavor: Drupe fruit aroma, cocoa, aromatic grass, honey, almond milk, cool grass, vanilla, melon, chocolate

Acidity: Cherry, kumquat, grape, citrus, mint, silky acidity, gentle acidity

Complexity and Others: Whole wheat cookie aroma, smooth milk cream, cooked tea flavor, complex flavor and taste, rock sugar sweetness in the aftertaste

Overall Style Attributes: Medium intensity, balanced sweet and sour, with wine aroma

Costa Rica's Finca Las Lajas is a farm of rare production. This lot was harvested by the farm in October 2011. It carries a smooth milk cream feel, an overall classic honey-processed character, and a unique whiskey-like wine aroma that lingers in the aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing Method: Pour-over

V60 dripper, 15g of coffee powder, water temperature 89°C, Fuji grinder setting 4, water-to-coffee ratio close to 1:15.

30g of water for the bloom, bloom time 30s. Segmented pour: pour water to 130g and stop, wait for the water level to drop by 1/3, then pour water again to 225g.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Honey processing is what put Las Lajas on the map, and it is the thread that connects the estate's cup to the wider family of Costa Rican honeys. FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Blackberry takes the black-honey route, a method that removes almost no mucilage and dries the beans for at least two weeks under cover so the sugars convert fully rather than flashing off in strong sun. The cherries are turned at intervals throughout drying to keep heat even and prevent over-fermentation, which makes black honey the most labor-intensive of the honey styles. Roasted medium-light, the Blackberry grinds into an intense floral fragrance and cups with grape, berry, and ripe blackberry notes.

Two other FrontStreet coffees push the same idea further. Strawberry Candy blends a Panama Geisha with a Costa Rican raisin-honey coffee that retains 100% of its mucilage with no water added; the cherries are floated to sort out underdeveloped and overripe fruit, dried on raised beds for at least three days, then stripped of skin and dried again, yielding Geisha's floral-tea character alongside raisin and dried blueberry, gentle fruit acidity, an almond finish, and pronounced sweetness. Costa Rica Mozart uses the same raisin-honey approach, applying it to fruit that is pre-dried on raised beds for at least three days before pulping, and it shows osmanthus, pineapple, and raisin whether brewed as pour-over, cold brew, or in a moka pot. Together these three coffees show how far the mucilage-retaining methods Las Lajas pioneered can be taken.