Introduction to Costa Rica Tarrazú Canet Estate Beethoven Washed Coffee

This lot comes from Canet, the highest-altitude corner of Costa Rica's Tarrazu region and the country's most intensive fruit-growing area. Coffee plantings here are scarce and tightly regulated: harvesting is done by hand, and only fully ripe red cherries make the cut.

FrontStreet Coffee's Musician Series Beethoven comes from Tarrazu, one of Central America's finest coffee regions. A special washed process gives this coffee a flavor and texture with a striking red-wine-like quality.

FrontStreet Coffee Musician Series Beethoven

Region: Canet, Costa Rica
Altitude: 1,900 M
Grade: SHB (Strictly Hard Bean)
Variety: Yellow Catuai
Processing: Washed
Roast Level: Light

Across the region's 1,200-1,700 meter growing zone, the harvest runs from December to March. Tarrazu coffee is full-bodied and deeply aromatic, with the smooth, high acidity that defines the region. It is one of the world's most celebrated coffee origins, and its hallmark is the flawless mouthfeel that high-altitude cultivation makes possible.

Tarrazu lies south of the capital, San José, and ranks among Costa Rica's most treasured growing areas. The famous "La Minita Tarrazu" is a local benchmark, though production is limited to roughly 72,600 kilograms (about 160,000 pounds) a year, grown on the "La Minita" land that the British McAlpine family has owned for three generations.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Washed processing is the traditional way of using water to transform coffee cherries: float sorting, depulping, fermentation to remove the mucilage, rinsing or further soaking, drying, and hulling. The long soak consumes much of the fruit's simple sugars and boosts organic acids, which is why washed coffees tend to be bright, clean, and refreshing while letting the bean's own character shine through.

If you love the clarity of this Beethoven lot, FrontStreet Coffee's washed lineup has more to offer. The Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative lot shows off jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity with green tea and honey tones at a medium-light roast. The Kenya "Cherry Tomato" takes Kenya's signature double-washed fermentation — an extra round of soaking and scrubbing — and turns it into intense juiciness: cherry tomato, dried plum, pear, black plum, and raw sugar. And Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1, also washed to suit the island's short island sunshine, brews up a perfectly balanced cup of hazelnut, cream, chocolate, and caramel with nothing out of place.