Costa Rica Abejilla Little Bee Processing Plant: Natural Honey Process Venice Coffee Bean Brewing Guide

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

This Costa Rican processing plant — Abejilla Farm — is home to a coffee variety found nowhere else in the world: Venecia. Its ripening period runs 25 to 40 days longer than that of traditional varieties, the beans are larger, and the aroma and concentration are more intense. That is why many buyers are willing to pay twice as much for this variety as for others.

Little Bee comes from San Vito, a small town in south-central Costa Rica ringed by mountains. In the 1950s it drew a large wave of Italian immigrants who settled there. Abejilla Farm sits at an altitude of 1,400 meters and grows the world's only Venecia (Variedad Venecia). Its ripening period extends 25-40 days beyond conventionally cultivated varieties, producing larger beans with superior aroma and concentration, and it consistently attracts special buyers competing for this rare variety. Abejilla processes its green beans by the honey method, with 100% sun-drying throughout, which drives the sweetness off the charts.

Costa Rica Little Bee Processing Plant

• Country: Costa Rica
• Coffee Variety: Venecia
• Production Altitude: 1,400 meters
• Quality Grade: SHB
• Processing Method: Honey Process

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing Method

V60 Dripper Brewing

• Water Temperature: 90-92°C
• Dose: 15g
• Ratio: 1:15
• Grind Size: Medium-fine, similar to fine sugar (Grind BG-5R (Chinese standard #20 sieve 60% pass-through rate))

Brewing Technique: Multi-stage extraction. Bloom with 30g of water for 30 seconds. When the water level drops to the point where the coffee bed is about to be exposed, continue pouring in a circular motion with a small stream to 125g, then pause. When the level drops again to the point of exposing the bed, pour on to 227g and stop. Wait until the level falls to the point of exposing the bed once more, then remove the dripper. (Timing begins when blooming starts.) Total extraction time: 1'54.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the V60 is your brewer, the coffees that reward it most are the floral and fruit-driven ones, and FrontStreet Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Gutingting is the classic example. Yirgacheffe is well known, but fewer people realize that small local yields mean farmers send their cherries to a cooperative for central processing. Gutingting is an outstanding team from Gutingting village with seasoned technique, and it earned its reputation on an especially refined, clean cup. The washed process lets jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity come through at maximum strength, and a light-to-medium roast adds green tea and honey notes. It is excellent as pour-over and equally good as cold brew or espresso.

FrontStreet Ethiopia Huakui, from the Hambella area of Guji in Sidamo, brings the tropical side. The 200-hectare farm uses traditional natural processing: to keep the cherries from moulding or picking up earthy off-notes, workers lay ripe fruit on raised beds in the sun for 21 days, turning it constantly so the beans dry evenly, and every three to five days they hand-sort out defective or mouldy beans. Because fruit and skin stay with the bean throughout drying, a light-to-medium roast gives faint fermented wine, florals, citrus and mango, with a thick body, honeyed sweetness, cocoa and a touch of spice. This is the one many drinkers describe as the coffee that does not taste like coffee.

For a blend in the same fruit-forward spirit, FrontStreet Strawberry Candy combines a honey-processed Costa Rican coffee with a washed Panamanian Gesha, roasted medium so that both the orange-blossom honey sweetness and the round body come through. It suits cold brew, pour-over and espresso, and it is refreshing from the first sip. FrontStreet Mozart is the other dessert-leaning option, a raisin honey-processed coffee with raisin and blueberry sweetness and osmanthus and rose florals — as good on the V60 as it is in a latte.

And if you want the honey style at its most classical, FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling and FrontStreet Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 sit at the other end of the spectrum. PWN Golden Mandheling is sorted three times by hand and once by machine to push the defect rate to its minimum and roasted medium-dark, giving a low-acid, full body with sandalwood, herb, caramel and dark chocolate notes; Blue Mountain No.1 is medium-roasted so that its acidity, bitterness, sweetness and body fuse into a balanced whole, with chocolate, roasted nut, cream and caramel from the first sip.