Costa Rica West Valley | Helsar Mill Laura/Elsa White Honey Caturra Flavor?

Helsar White Honey Caturra from Costa Rica's Western Valley

Helsar is one of the earliest micro-processing plants to arrive since Costa Rica's micro-mill revolution began, appearing on the market as early as 2007. It stands alongside first-wave pioneers such as Herbazu, Brumas, and La Hacas. The plant's owner, Ricardo Pérez Barrantes, has grown coffee in Costa Rica for over 40 years. He is an experienced producer devoted to innovating the processing method, and his results have been exceptional from early washed processing through the honey processing of recent years. Like other smallholders in the early days, he delivered his harvested cherries to medium and large plants. High-quality green beans were blended with ordinary lots for export, leaving farmers only meager profit in the chain — which neither encouraged farmers to pursue better bean quality nor improved their standard of living. In response, the Ricardo family joined the micro-mill revolution in 2004 and founded Helsar. It began by working mainly with his brother Marvin and Felipe Rodriguez to process beans from their own Santa Lucia Estate, and in recent years has also taken on high-quality cherries from smallholders in micro-regions such as Lourdes de Naranjo and Llano Bonito de Naranjo in the Western Valley. Those years have brought high praise and a substantial record of awards in the international coffee market.

Costa Rica is a model producing country for specialty and micro-batch coffee. Over a decade ago, many farmers started building their own micro-processing plants. By improving bean quality year after year, they kept clear of ordinary commercial bulk coffee, which let them win better prices and supply superior green beans. Helsar is a standard medium-sized processing plant in Costa Rica and a model for local producers, with remarkable results internationally over the years. In 2007 it scored 91.37 points at the Cup of Excellence (CoE), earning a commendable third-place finish. In 2010 the renowned coffee publication Coffee Review gave it 92 points for three consecutive months, in August, September, and October. In 2011 it won the Canadian Coffee Masters Championship with 651 points and represented the country at the Vienna World Championship the following year — once again proving the extraordinary value of the beans Helsar produces.

Coffee Information

Region: Western Valley

Grower: Rola Estate

Processing Plant: Helsar

Altitude: 1700M

Variety: Caturra

Processing Method: White Honey

Flavor Description: Floral, white wine, citrus gummies, delicate and bright, light and lively acidity

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90 degrees

Grind Size: Fuji grinder setting 3.5

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, 15g of coffee; first pour 25g of water for a 25s bloom, second pour to 120g of water and stop, wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before continuing to pour, slowly, until reaching 225g total, with an extraction time of approximately 2:00.

Analysis: The three-stage brew clearly distinguishes the front, middle, and back segments of the cup. Because the V60 has many ribs and drains faster, stopping the pour helps extend the extraction time.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Costa Rica's honey process descends from pulped natural, or semi-dry, processing — removing the skin before drying to shorten the drying period and head off the off-flavors that poor fermentation can bring. FrontStreet's Brazil Cerrado is a textbook semi-dry coffee, showing clear cream, peanut, nut, and chocolate notes. Costa Rican producers picked up the technique and refined it, dialing the amount of retained mucilage and the drying time up or down to create honey processing and its finer grades: white honey, yellow honey, red honey, and black honey.

FrontStreet's Costa Rica Blackberry takes the black honey route, stripping away almost none of the mucilage and drying for at least two weeks under cover, so strong sunlight cannot dry the beans too quickly and the sugars can convert fully. The beds must be turned regularly to prevent uneven heat and over-fermentation, which makes black honey especially demanding. Roasted light-medium, Blackberry gives off a deep floral perfume when ground and drinks with singular grape, berry, and ripe blackberry flavors.

FrontStreet's Strawberry Candy is, as the name says, a blend of Panama Geisha and Costa Rican coffee: the Geisha contributes the classic orange-blossom-and-honey note, while the Costa Rican side is raisin honey processed with 100% mucilage retained and zero water used. On harvest day the cherries are tipped into a large tank, where ripe, dense fruit sinks and underdeveloped or overripe fruit floats off. The sorted cherries dry on raised beds for at least three days, then the skin is removed and the mucilage left in place for continued drying with constant turning. The blend carries Geisha's floral-tea quality plus a clean grape and dried blueberry aroma, gentle fruit acidity, an almond finish, and clear sweetness. Estates have also pushed beyond standard honey processing with the innovative raisin honey method, a modified take on the traditional yellow, red, and black styles: the whole fruit pre-dries on raised beds for at least three days before the skin and pulp are removed and the usual honey stage continues. Keeping 100% mucilage raises the difficulty, and by FrontStreet's reading it requires stricter timing control and is even harder than black honey. It layers in a richer, juicier fruit sweetness — reach for FrontStreet's Mozart, and whether you brew pour-over, cold brew, or moka pot, you will find its distinctive osmanthus, pineapple, and raisin aromas.