The Complex and Varied Flavors of Costa Rica's Western Valley Orange County Honey Processed Villa Sarchi

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Costa Rica's Western Valley Naranjo Region

This rich, complex, and exceptionally unique coffee comes from Herbazu. Herbazu belongs to the Don Tono Barrantes family's micro-mill, and this family's farms are located in the Lourdes valley of the Naranjo region. Naranjo is part of Costa Rica's West Valley region.

Before 2005, Costa Rica was dominated almost entirely by large processing plants, with annual production exceeding 100,000 bags and thousands of member farmers. However, for coffee farmers who could produce high-quality coffee but often only yielded about a hundred bags annually, unless they developed their own small processing facilities, their coffee would be submerged in large cooperatives and impossible to export under their own farm names. Some small farmers producing high-quality coffee gradually awakened, and this awakening trend led to the rise of micro-mills!

These emerging micro-mills, if not processing green beans for neighboring farms, often only handle a few containers per year. However, the advantage is that they can finely care for and adjust each stage to achieve the optimal processing flow, while not worrying about large bean merchants not purchasing. As long as the quality is good and known to specialty coffee merchants, they can establish direct trade relationships (direct trade, a model strongly promoted by specialty coffee buyers).

Only micro-mills can produce high-quality honey-processed beans like Brumas and Herbazu, because it's difficult in large cooperatives to execute different mucilage retention in small batches. The main reason is the lack of economic efficiency, and unless the customer's quantity is sufficient to process a large batch, they will process according to averages. Micro-mills, however, begin monitoring and adjusting from the harvesting stage, constantly making adjustments and controls according to bean conditions. The "post-harvest processing" between the two actually contains different philosophies.

Herbazu is a pioneer of this micro-milling trend! As just mentioned, Herbazu comes from 13 small farms of the same family, owned by the children of Don Tono Barrantes. They are all siblings (each with an average farm area of 2.5 hectares). Due to their strong unity and to save labor costs, they all support each other in various stages of coffee cultivation, such as planting, pruning, picking, milling, and drying. The family divides the work and cooperates to care for and support each other's farms. Herbazu's processing mill only handles the family's coffee, making it a typical family-run mill because they don't process for other coffee farmers or purchase others' coffee cherries.

Honey Processing

Honey processing, also known as Miel processing, was developed by micro-mills and originated from small farms. These small farms harvest their own coffee cherries, remove the fruit skin, retain varying amounts of mucilage, and then continue with the drying process. This method is inspired by Brazil's Pulped Natural process: the coffee is dried in the husk either by sun-drying or machine-drying to about 11.5%-12% moisture content, then sent to dry processing mills for hulling and grading. The advantage is that they only need to coordinate with the final dry processing mill, while the quality and processing method of the green beans can be controlled almost 100% by themselves.

For high-quality miel-processed coffee, besides cupping, personally visiting micro-mills to observe each stage of the processing model is an important reference to avoid selecting batches that are only fleeting. After honey processing is completed and sun-dried, the color of the husked beans can be divided into: white honey, yellow honey, red honey, and black honey.

The Rare Excellent Villa Sarchi Variety

Villa Sarchi, translated as薇拉莎奇, is a variety originating from Costa Rica, very suitable for cultivation in high-altitude areas with large temperature differences and occasional strong winds. This variety doesn't need much protection from windbreaks. Villa Sarchi's tree shape and leaf type are similar to Caturra and Pacas, but with more lush foliage. However, it has better wind resistance, more consistent coffee cherry maturation periods (convenient for farmers to harvest), and is suitable for cultivation in high-altitude areas. During our cupping, we tested different varieties from Herbazu and have been purchasing Villa Sarchi for four consecutive years precisely because of its superior quality.

Basic Information:

Origin: Costa Rica, West Valley, Naranjo region, Lourdes

Farm Name: Cafe Herbazu

Brand: HBZ estate coffee

Variety: 100% Villa Sarchi

Processing Method: White honey processing, with sun-drying in the final stage

Dry Aroma: Chocolate, floral notes, honey sweetness, berries, vanilla plants

Wet Aroma: Berries, chocolate, creamy fragrance, honey

Cupping Notes: Delicate mouthfeel, lime, citrus chocolate, grapefruit, tea-like sensation, honey sweetness, varied fruit acidity, cherry, vanilla plants with a long-lasting finish

Knowledge Point: Coffee roasting is the process that triggers Maillard reactions and caramelization reactions within green coffee beans, producing more wonderful flavors.

In Summary: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research center dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation, aiming to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month, we hold three coffee promotion events with significant discounts because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends enjoy the best coffee at the lowest possible price. This has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past six years!

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