Introduction to Costa Rica San Isidro Labrador Estate Honey Process Geisha Coffee Beans

Costa Rica - Hacienda San Isidro Labrador - Honey Process - Geisha

Country: Costa Rica

Region: Tarrazú, Candelaria

Estate: Hacienda San Isidro Labrador

Altitude: 1,900-2,100 meters

Variety: Geisha

Processing Method: Honey Process

Flavor Notes: Cherry, Orange, Yellow Peach, Floral, Oolong Tea

Hacienda San Isidro Labrador sits in Costa Rica's most celebrated coffee region, Tarrazú. The plantation covers 6 hectares in the Santa María de Dota area, where the steep terrain both shields the coffee trees from Atlantic weather and lets them catch warm Pacific currents, with generous sunlight all day. The estate sits at roughly 1,950 meters, and its distinct dry and rainy seasons create a microclimate tailor-made for coffee.

Estate owner Johel Monge Naranjo is a third-generation coffee farmer who grew up learning every aspect of cultivation at his father's side and turned that inheritance into a thriving business.

At 15, Johel's father gave him a plot of land to grow coffee and stand on his own two feet, hoping to raise him into a diligent farmer. But at 21, Johel's ambitions shifted: he wanted to study land surveying. He sold the coffee farm he'd inherited and spent more than twenty years working as a surveying engineer. After retiring, the ever-restless Mr. Johel returned to coffee, buying a property called San Isidro Labrador and rekindling his childhood passion.

Today Johel runs the Labrador estate together with his son Matias Monge, concentrating on specialty coffee production, cultivation, and quality. Matias graduated from university as a mechanical engineer and worked in the field for several years before the family's inherited passion for coffee pulled him back to the farm.

Through their combined efforts, Labrador Estate has entered the Cup of Excellence (COE) green bean auctions repeatedly in recent years, with outstanding results:

• 2017: COE First Place
• 2018: COE Second Place
• 2019: COE First Place and Third Place
• 2022: COE Second Place
• 2023: COE First Place (together with Finca El Cedro)
• 2024: COE Experimental Category Second Place

Notably, Labrador Estate was acquired by Don Ricky about 9 years ago, which makes today's Hacienda San Isidro Labrador nominally a sub-estate under the Don Dario Farm umbrella.

Honey Process Geisha from Labrador Estate

FrontStreet Coffee's current lot from Hacienda San Isidro Labrador uses the honey process that so many coffee lovers adore. It lends the Geisha variety delicate pink-floral notes while adding a distinctive tropical-fruit character. In his micro-lot processing, Johel draws on years of accumulated green-bean skill to squeeze the most out of honey processing — a Costa Rican specialty that produces beans with concentrated aromatics, full sweetness, and rich layers of complexity.

Honey processing itself isn't complicated, but doing it well means sweating many small details, and it takes more time and labor than either natural or washed processing. First, ripe cherries go into a depulper to strip the skin and pulp. The beans, still coated in intact mucilage, are then spread on suspended mesh screens to dry, turned constantly for even heating. The sticky parchment beans cling together at first, then gradually harden until they reach the right dehydration level, at which point they're ready for the warehouse.

Roasting and Cupping Notes

To preserve the floral and fruit-acid molecules of this honey-processed Geisha while spotlighting its candy-like sweetness, FrontStreet Coffee's roasters settled on a medium-light roast as the ideal.

After two days of degassing and resting, the team ran a cupping. In the dry aroma, the Labrador honey-processed Geisha gives off intense pink rose notes backed by fruit tones — cranberry, yellow peach, grape. When hot water hit the cup, it released fresh citrus and honey fragrances.

After breaking the crust and skimming the grounds, we tasted distinctly juice-like characteristics — grape, orange, cherry — with a black-tea aftertaste and elegant florals. As the cup cooled, the sweet-tart citrus and apricot grew lighter and the finish stayed clean. Drinking it feels like sipping a sweet fruit tea — an instant mood-lifter.

Brewing Recommendations

High-altitude hard beans generally brew acid-forward, and at a medium-light roast the bean's internal structure stays relatively hard, so extraction calls for higher water temperature and a finer grind to reach the aromatics. For an aromatically complex coffee like Geisha, FrontStreet Coffee also recommends buying fresh beans — every bag we sell was roasted within the past 5 days, so it arrives at peak flavor, ready to brew immediately.

For brewing, FrontStreet Coffee chose a Hario V60 dripper: 15g of coffee ground to a fine-sugar consistency (80% pass-through on a #20 standard sieve), a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, 91°C water, and a three-stage pour.

First, add the 15g of grounds and tare the scale. Stage one: pour 30g of water to bloom for 30 seconds, starting the timer as you pour. Use a gentle stream, circling from the center outward until the whole bed is saturated.

Stage two: a slightly larger stream, pouring 120g of water to lift the entire bed. Pour vertically and evenly — the scale should read 150g, with the pour finishing around 55 seconds.

When the water level drops to about half, start stage three: 90g with a small stream in tight circles. Keep the circles small — too wide and you'll scatter the grounds and under-extract. Total water: 240g, with the full drawdown finishing in roughly 2 minutes 10 seconds. Remove the dripper, give the coffee a gentle swirl in the server to even it out, and enjoy.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Once you've tasted a properly farmed Geisha, it's hard to stop. If this Costa Rican honey lot has you hooked, here are three more Geishas from our lineup at different price points:

FrontStreet Granada Estate Gesha (Ethiopia, Yirgacheffe, natural, medium-light roast) — The ideal first Geisha. From a washing station established in 2014 and run by Mr. Israel Degefa, on 700 hectares of fertile, shade-covered land, with fully ripe cherries dried on raised beds for 14–20 days. Bright citrus acidity, elegant ginger-flower aroma, ripe-fruit sweetness, and a silky texture with the signature refined Geisha finish.

FrontStreet Geisha Village Gold Label (Ethiopia, Geisha 1931 variety, natural process) — From the large estate founded beside the original Gesha forest, growing three Geisha varieties under strict grading. The Gold Label is the Geisha 1931 variety — just 10% of the estate's output and its top non-auction coffee, a frequent pick for competition baristas — with the complex richness of a fine natural process.

FrontStreet Esmeralda Red Label Gesha (Panama, washed) — The "Esmeralda Special": grown at 1,600–1,800 meters, each batch cupping above 90 points and traceable to a single plot (ours from the Jaramillo plot). Panamanian Geisha's hallmark orange-blossom honey notes with juicy fruit acidity and a tea-like finish — the benchmark by which all Geishas are judged.