Costa Rica Tarrazú El Ruby

This microlot is from farmer and mill owner, Cesar Esquivel, at Cerro La Cruz. This particular lot is from one of his plots of land called, "El Ruby", which stretches up to about 1900 meters above sea level, and is planted in Caturra and Catuaí varieties. The coffee is mechanically washed, which means that in stead of using fermentation to remove the sticky fruit after depulping, they strip both cherry and fruit away using a mechanical demucilager equipment. It's the same machinery used to produce honeys. A simple adjustment to the demucilager affects how much fruit is left intact after depulping. The more fruit, the wilder the cup flavors. They call this "White Honey" in Costa Rica, which just means they remove as much fruit as possible without scoring the seed. The resulting cup is a close approximation to wet process, fermented coffee, with clean cup flavors, and acidity that sparkles. There is a bit more chaff produced during roasting than a fully washed coffee, but nowhere near the amount of dry process or honey process coffees. The coffee also presents darker during the roasting process, which is something to pay attention to when judging roast level, as they are often slightly lighter than they appear. The city of San Marcos is in the Talamanca Sierra highlands, with peaks reaching as high as 3000 meters. It's an ideal micro-region and climate for growing coffee with rich volcanic soil, great altitude, and is shaded from the hot afternoon suns by mountain peaks.