Costa Rica Micro-Mills 2008

Don't eat the worm... The worm is a fly larvae, not a threat to the coffee, but when newbies visit farms and find a few ripe cherry hanging around after the crop, they should be advised there are usually some larvae in there.	Great Tacos in Costa Rica A sale on the Gordita, just over a buck.	Or if you prefer.... I can't think of a country I have visited where I did NOT see a KFC. Maybe Yemen, come to think of it...
Don't crash the crux I always take pictures of bikes, Typical small CR bike, goofy name.	Roasters at Cafes Finos Associacion de Cafes Finos shares space with others for cupping and test roasting, including Cafe Noble, Francois' company. Here's a small Diedrich and a probat 2 barrel.	Another Probat So they have 2 x 2 barrels and that little Diedrich, plenty of capacity for roasting. The roaster is Walter.
Cafes Finos Cafes Finos	Late night cupping So it was like 7 or 8, not a good time to cup, but we did 33 lots anyway.	New Raised Beds An espresso machine as coffee drier ... that's a new one
A couple extra Probatinos In the closet, you know, $20 K in roastes, These are the ones used for the Cup of Excellence.	Yargh - plaster and gesso... A 3-D coffee art monstrosity.	Francois and Scott Scott Reed hunched over to sniff and Francois pours. It was sorta a wasted cupping: Scott wanted the coffee roasted not ridiculously light, but they ended up too dark. But I got a full set of green samples to cup at home so no problem.
Brumas Del Zurqui Next Am we went to a very clean mill, Brumas Del Zurqui in Heredia area. These West Valley zones that were once all coffee are slowly becoming suburbs of San Jose.	Water Tank The entire mill can run for one day using 1 cubic meter of water. This is standard for the Penagos type demucilage system, and great for both water conservation and contamination prevention.	Last Resort - the Guardiola If patio drying and raised bed drying are not possible, the mechanical drier is used, the guardiola. These aren't bad, if used properly.
Semi-Washed Pergamino on Raised Bed This is near to fully washed type Brumas parchment coffee. If there's confusion, parchment coffee, called pergamino often, is the green seed inside the shell-like protective layer.	Juan Ramon - Brumas del Zurqui Juan Ramon has taken over the coffee operation from his father, but the family has been in coffee since 1890. Brumas mill is between Volcan Barba and Volcan Irizu, and their coffee ranges from 1250 to 1600 meters.	The Penagos Pulper The Penagos takes off the skin of the coffee fruit with little or no water usage. These are made in Bucaramanga Colombia, and very popular in CR. They are the heart of the MicroMill movement, since previously all mills were situated on rivers where they could draw large amounts of water.
Typical Penagos Micro Mill The Brumas mill is Penagos all the way. You can see 2 depulpers, and to the right of the little yellow ladder, the vertical demucilager. This allows total control of exactly how much fruit is left on the parchment layer, how "washed" the coffee is, and therefore great control of the final cup character.	Patio Sun Dry Pergamino Brumas has nice traditional patios for drying, when the weather allows.	Miel Coffee on African Raised Bed Here you can see the yellow color of Miel coffee, semi-washed, that is, on the raised beds, It always reminds me of Sugar Pops cereal. You know, the one with the Sugar Bear. I think they renamed it Honey Bear though.
Nice beds for resting coffee Here you see nice welded steel beds with multiple layers of screen for air and sun drying. Miel is in the foreground, "washed" style coffees in the back.	Covering the beds The beds are easily covered to prevent damage from rain. Covering also raises the heat. Brumas uses 4 hour cycles of covering and uncovering the beds for drying.	Francois and Juan Ramon Francois, ever loyal in his Brumas hat, checks out the beds. Brumas uses an elaborate system of checking the sugar content of coffee to be harvested each morning, using the measurements to decide how they will process and dry the coffee.
Typical Tica Style We're off to the next farm, but I had to snap a picture of Tica style, that is, "wear it tight nomatter what". In general, I think spandex would be a good business in Costa Rica.	Beneficio La Eva - Big Mill Our next stop is a large mill, but in no way the largest in CR. La Eva has produced some surprisingly good coffee for a private mill that buys cherry.	Rack Em Up To count the incoming cahuelas of coffee, a colorful abacus system. Cahuelas, Fanegas, Latas, every country has different volume measurements for incoming coffee cherry.
Yargh! Repala Most of the good coffee has come and gone, and it's the tail end of the crop. They are running repala (last pickings of usually overripe coffee) at the mill. The manager Hans wated to make sure we knew this was basically for cleaning the equipment.	Fermentation Art? You know Latte Art, but what about this. In the fermentation tank, a pattern is masterfully formed by a certified member of the Beneficio Guild, creating a fanciful pattern in fermenting coffee.	Low water usage? Hell no! la Eva is one of the old mills with plenty of water. They wash out the fermentation tanks when the coffee is finished (i.e. the fruity mucilage has broken down and can be removed) and they spare no water. They also clean all their water before it leaves the mill, and are building a new treatment facility next year.
Vertical Dryers, 30 feet high. These are vertical dryers, and are not preferred. Guardiola drum dryers tend to be safer for the coffee, but used right, good coffee can be dried this way. I think La Eva uses a combination of both the protect each lot of coffee, in addition to patio drying.	Pergamino, Lotsa Pergamino. This picture hardly represents the mountains of parchment coffee in rest (reposo) at la Eva. I had to dive in, because I am a real tuff coffee dude.	No camera can capture... Here's a hill o beans but I am also standing 12 feet above the warehouse floor taking this picture, and there's another 8000 square feet of warehouse around be as piled with coffee as this ... and there's another warehouse across the way! Macro-mill, but not even one of the largest in CR.
Nano Mill The worlds smallest coffee mill, my shoe. After getting into the parchment, I walked around and "milled" the coffee into green bean form. Thoughtfully, I did NOT return the results to La Eva's massive parchment pile.	Just a bit of coffee. The brand new La Eva dry mill, with bags ready to load in containers and ship	4 New Oliver Tables A key for dry milling is densimetric sorting. la Eva has 3 new oliver tables and 1 older one.