The History Story of Costa Rican Dota Estate Coffee Goddess_How to Drink Costa Rican Goddess Geisha

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Today FrontStreet Coffee would like to share a Geisha coffee from Costa Rica, but it's not the honey process that everyone imagines. Although Costa Rica's honey process is very famous and of high quality, we always need to try new things! This Geisha comes from La Diosa Estate, which grows the La Diosa variety—what a perfect match!

Region Introduction

Costa Rica's coffee-growing areas are volcanic terrain with fertile volcanic ash, moderate and suitable temperatures, and stable, abundant rainfall—all factors that make coffee one of Costa Rica's main agricultural products. The coffee beans produced in the high-latitude areas of Costa Rica are world-renowned, being rich, mild in flavor, but extremely acidic. The coffee beans here are carefully processed, which is why they achieve such high quality.

Costa Rica's coffee harvest season can be divided into two periods throughout the year. The dry season runs from December to April each year, coinciding with the coffee harvest, while the wet (rainy) season occurs from May to November. In recent years, micro-mills have been established one after another. Since they require only 5% of the water consumption of traditional washed processing plants and don't need large water tanks and drying fields, the required investment is relatively much smaller. "Honey-processed coffee" with low acidity, increased complexity, and rich, sweet aroma has thus become a competitive target in the coffee industry in recent years.

Costa Rica is located south of the capital San José in the Tarrazú region, one of the country's valued coffee-growing areas. Among Costa Rica's many excellent producing regions, there is one famous region that stands out—Tarrazú. Tarrazú is extremely prestigious in the specialty coffee world and is one of the world's main coffee-producing regions.

Tarrazú is located in the fertile volcanic region of Central America, with a humid climate and fertile volcanic rock soil. The area receives abundant rainfall throughout the year, has high altitude, and features dense natural forest shade, providing a uniquely advantageous growing environment for coffee. No pesticides or artificial fertilizers are used during cultivation. Nearly 95% of the coffee beans produced in the high mountains of Tarrazú belong to the Strictly Hard Bean (SHB) category, generally grown at altitudes above 1,500 meters.

La Diosa Estate

La Diosa Estate is located in the Dota region within Costa Rica's most renowned Tarrazú area, known for producing micro-batch Geisha varieties. As early as 1865, the Dota region enjoyed a reputation for good Costa Rican coffee. Because the highway construction extending from the capital to the Dota mountain valley had to pass through the Tarrazú region, the Costa Rican Coffee Institute later habitually marked it as Dota Tarrazú when identifying producing regions. This area is a typical plateau terrain, where both soil and temperature/humidity are superior choices for coffee cultivation conditions.

La Diosa Estate was established in the 1960s. The estate owner is very good friends with Pachi Serracin, who is now very famous as the father of Panamanian Geisha. Pachi Serracin brought back the Geisha variety from CATIE, Costa Rica's world's largest industrial scientific research station for coffee species and varieties. La Diosa Estate grows coffee using organic methods, utilizing local native trees and fruit trees as shade for the coffee.

The fertilizer used is also made from coffee cherry pulp mixed with molasses, combined with fertile soil from nearby mountain areas with high mineral content and fermented with microorganisms to create organic fertilizer that enhances coffee disease resistance. They also habitually use California earthworms to cultivate soil and directly serve as the main nutrient source for coffee trees during fertilization periods. They cultivate multiple coffee varieties mixed together, all purchasing and selecting fully ripe red-purple berries, and widely control the soaking fermentation process to develop a very unique constant-temperature processing method. The neither-too-much nor-too-little fermentation degree achieves an excellent balance between coffee clarity and complexity, allowing its flavor characteristics to show greater stability, making people intoxicated.

Geisha Variety

Geisha is pronounced the same as the Japanese word "geisha," hence it's also known as Geisha coffee. Because the tree variety is taller than typical coffee trees, it was originally planted in a small area within the estate and used as a windbreak.

The Geisha variety was discovered in the Geisha forest of Ethiopia in 1931 and then sent to the Coffee Research Institute in Kenya. In 1936, it was introduced to Uganda and Tanzania. In 1953, Costa Rica introduced it. For a long time, not many people paid attention to Geisha until one day when Don Pachi initially brought it from the small town of GESHA in southwestern Ethiopia to Costa Rica. Afterwards, Geisha entered Panama along the southern route. Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda separated it from other varieties and won the National Coffee Competition championship in one fell swoop.

Processing Method: Anaerobic Enzyme Washed

The anaerobic enzyme washed method refers to the process of removing the skin and pulp of fully red fresh fruits through mechanical washing equipment, then adding enzymes to the fermentation tank to increase the coffee's flavor and sweetness.

Green Bean Analysis

The green beans appear relatively elongated and light green in color. Unlike the usual grassy smell of green beans, La Diosa Geisha smells not only of grass but also has more of the fresh fragrance of bergamot and berries.

Roasting Analysis

Considering that Costa Rican beans are generally hard and have medium moisture content, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster chose to use high-temperature roasting to quickly dehydrate, using a faster roasting rhythm to express the fruit flavors and floral aromas of this La Diosa Geisha.

Roasting machine: Yangjia 800N (300g batch size)

Charge temperature: 170°C, heat: 120, damper: 3. Turning point at 1'36", when temperature reached 140°C, opened damper to 4, heat unchanged. When temperature reached 149°C, bean surface turned yellow, grassy smell completely disappeared, entering dehydration stage. When temperature reached 166°C, adjusted heat to 110, damper unchanged.

At 7'09", ugly wrinkles and black spots appeared on the bean surface, toast smell clearly turned to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, one must listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 8'25", first crack began, adjusted damper to 5 (adjusting heat requires great care, not so small as to have no cracking sound). After first crack, developed for 1'30", dropped at 190°C.

Agtron bean color value: 72.9 (above image), Agtron grounds value: 88.2 (below image), Roast Delta value: 15.3.

Cupping Report

Flavor: Rose, lemon, honey, maple syrup, fruit tea

Brewing

Costa Rica Dota El Diosa Geisha

Costa Rica Dota La Diosa Estate Geisha

Origin: Costa Rica

Region: Tarrazu

Estate: Dota El Diosa

Variety: Geisha

Altitude: 1800m

Processing Method: Anaerobic Enzyme Washed

Recommended brewing method: Pour-over

Dripper: Hario V60

Water temperature: 90-92°C

Dose: 15g

Ratio: 1:15/1:16

Grind size: Medium-fine (BG 7T: 58% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Brewing technique: Segment extraction

Bloom with 30g of water for 30 seconds. Using a small water stream, pour in a circular motion to 124g, then segment. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 227g and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper (timing starts from the beginning of bloom). Extraction time is 2'01".

Flavor: Overall, the floral aroma is quite prominent, with strong lemon fruit tea notes. The entry has citrus and cream, with a relatively refreshing and sweet taste on the palate.

Important Notice :

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