Introduction to Costa Rica's Little Candle Estate: How to Best Brew Costa Rica Geisha Coffee Beans

The washed Geisha from Costa Rica's La Candelilla Estate, offered by FrontStreet Coffee, has long been the holy grail for Geisha drinkers. It is not only reasonably priced, it also delivers exceptional flavor: intensely aromatic with white flowers and citrus, and a strong lemon acidity. The honey-like sweetness paired with a tea-like finish makes it a truly distinctive bean.

FrontStreet Coffee would like to introduce you to Costa Rica's La Candelilla Estate.

The Legacy of La Candelilla Estate

La Candelilla Estate is a private company owned by seven brothers and brothers-in-law (Ricardo Hernandez, Didier Sanchez, Mario Sanchez, Pablo Sanchez, Hugo Naranjo, Mario René Solis, and Enrique Rivera). Each owns 3 to 5 small farms and processes their coffee at the La Candelilla Mill. The Hernandez family has farmed the lands of Tarrazú for five generations, growing coffee in the same region for over 50 years. Before La Candelilla was established, each sibling worked his own land separately and sent the coffee to cooperatively managed wet mills for processing.

Innovation and Excellence

After years of planning, these families pooled their resources to build La Candelilla Estate & Micro Mill. It was a first for Costa Rica and laid the foundation many small producers would follow. The boom in micro mills has a lot to do with the sophistication of Costa Rican processing. La Candelilla Estate is recognized as one of the country's earliest micro mills, dating from the 2000s, and is known for high-quality washed, natural, and honey-processed coffees. The farm cultivates and experiments with different varieties, including Caturra, Catuai, Typica, Geisha, and SL28. Candelilla was also among the first farms in Costa Rica to adopt African beds for drying. On top of that, the estate donates to local schools every year as part of its Café Practices certification requirements.

The estate now produces 1,000 bags of coffee a year and is highly regarded as one of the country's finest producers. Its processing and variety work has always been forward-thinking, and it now turns out multiple batches of Geisha each year. The family is among the few producers in Costa Rica still using traditional fermentation, but they have built an extensive lagoon system that purifies water with native plants before returning it to the rivers.

Didier, owner of Finca Palmilera, took second place in the 2013 Cup of Excellence with his Geisha.

FrontStreet Coffee's Selection

FrontStreet Coffee buys the premium Geisha specialty coffee from La Candelilla Estate. The washed method makes this coffee exceptionally clean and fresh.

Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee suggests the following parameters: 15 grams of coffee at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, water at 90°C, and a segmented pour totaling roughly 2 minutes.

First pour: 30 grams of water, bloom for 30 seconds.

Second pour: keep pouring until you reach 125 grams.

Third pour: use a slightly stronger flow to reach 225 grams in total. The whole process should take about 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this washed La Candelilla Geisha is your entry point, FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete Geisha from Panama is the natural next step. It is an estate-level Geisha grown at 1,600 meters on fertile volcanic ash soil, and it pours out the variety's signature jasmine florals, green tea, honey, citrus, and orange. For a lighter, more restrained expression, the Costa Rican Geisha tends to carry more body than its Panamanian cousin — where Panama is fresh and light, Costa Rica is the more reserved style — and the same washed clarity you get from La Candelilla shows up in FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rican honey-process Geisha, with flower tea, rosehip, and green grape.

Geisha is a light-to-medium roast floral-fruit coffee, and the beans are dense, so they tend to sink and clog the drain hole. FrontStreet suggests grinding to about 78% through a Chinese No. 20 sieve — roughly fine granulated sugar — and brewing at 91°C. A 15g dose in a small Hario V60 at a 1:16 ratio works well, poured in three stages: start the clock, pour to 30g and bloom for 30 seconds, then a slow circling pour to 125g, wait for the bed to drop halfway, and finish with a gentle circling pour to 225g, for a total extraction of about 2:10 to 2:20. Geisha also makes a fine SOE if you prefer espresso.