Costa Rica Zarcero Monte Brisas Danto

Maria Elena Castro and son Luis Salazar opened their micro mill, Beneficio Monte Brisas, back in 2011 after years of delivering their coffee cherry to other mills and cooperatives. Their farms sit between 1500 and 1750 meters above sea level on the lush mountainous slopes of Zarcero in Costa Rica's famed West Valley growing region. The Pacific is the major influence in the West Valley with sprawling views of Naranjo and Alajuela readily available across it. This lot comes from a part of the farm called "Danto", where they are growing Centroamericano variety, an F1 hybrid known for disease resistance and high cup potential. The Monte Brisas mill is incredibly clean and well cared for, and feels a bit like a museum with all of its meticulously maintained older machinery! The coffee is mechanically washed on a Desacafe machine and sun dried on raised beds adjacent to the wet mill. Leaving that fruit mucilage intact instead of washing it away is the hallmark of honey process coffee. This lot, however, is what some call "semi-washed", or "white honey", which is the Costa Rican equivalent of a fully washed coffee. The demucilager machine is calibrated to remove as much fruit as possible. Then the coffee is soaked for a short period to help wash away some of the remaining fruit. Without fermentation, there is still a very thin layer of fruit intact. This means the coffee looks a little darker when roasting it, and a much higher instance of chaff than the typical fully washed/fermented coffee.