Costa Rica Lourdes Sumava Milenio Variety

It brings us great pleasure to feature coffee from Sumava coffee farm for the first time this year. It's from a farm run by long term Costa Rican supplier, and friend, Francisco Mena. Francisco has been key to our Costa Rica sourcing, someone we've worked with for well over 15 years now. He reminded me (Dan), that Tom was one of his first clients when he started his company, Exclusive Coffees, in a small garage almost 20 years ago. The fact that our connection stretches back nearly two decades is not lost on us, and one we get sentimental about too! Francisco's volume capacity has grown to impressive proportions since those days, but his focus on sourcing high quality coffees has not wavered, nor has his commitment to developing longterm buying relationships between clients all over the world, and the producers he works with. Sumava is located in Costa Rica's West Valley region, within Lourdes de Naranjo. The coffee is grown between 1650 and 1750 meters above sea level. The "Milenio" variety is what's called and F1 Hybrid, bred by crossing Timor Hybrid for disease resistance and Rume Sudan from Ethiopia for good cup quality. It was processed using what's referred to as "White Honey" in Costa Rica. First, the outer fruit is mechanically pulped leaving behind a thin layer of fruit mucilage intact for the dyring phase, which takes 2-3 weeks.