Very Special
Here’s what made us feature this coffee on our VS lineup:
- The origin: Costa Rica: home to some of the most premium coffee lots, the Las Lajas group makes justice to their reputation with premium, experimental coffees like this lot
- Orange Bourbon variety: a rare, unusual variation of the Bourbon variety, it’s challenging when it comes down to picking time (because it’s hard to tell whether it’s green or actually ripe!)
- Black Diamond Process: a slow curing version of the standard natural process, it brings a bunch of fizzy, fermenty flavours that will please those who look for more ‘festive’ flavour profiles
The process
What makes this process different from all the rest is the intentional curing process. It is still a Natural process, but the drying period takes between 15 and 22 days. The process is very similar to their other Natural processes: it starts with the rigorous harvesting standards, sorting and letting the superficial humidity dry for one day on raised beds. Then the beans are moved from the raised beds to the drying patio.
The drying process takes more attention than the rest of their Naturals. Since it’s a slow drying process, they need to constantly check on the temperature and movement of the beans so they don’t get heated. What they’re aiming for with this process is slow dehydration, slower than usual, not allowing the temperature to rise abruptly, and everything under control measures. Oscar explained that the concept comes from the process of drying coffee seeds for nursery, slowly drying them without compromising the embryo; a passive drying process.
With this process, they don’t want to harm the beans with high temperatures, but rather allow the sugars of the mucilage to cold crystallise. They look to obtain a sweeter, clearer, and brighter coffee with the Diamond process.
Las Lajas
Oscar and Francisca Chacón are third-generation coffee producers, but the coffee is more than just in their family heritage: It’s in their hearts and souls as well. The couple is committed to quality and innovation, and is among the very first farmers in Costa Rica to produce Honey and Natural process specialty coffee.
In 2005, after years of delivering their cherry to a cooperative for the going market price, they decided to join the brand-new “micromill revolution” and buy their own depulper to have more control over the quality and the price they received for their lots. “At first, we didn’t know what we were doing,” Oscar explains. “We were just experimenting.” That experimentation led to some of the most exciting new flavour profiles we have ever tasted: Now, the Chacons produce a wide range of Honey process coffees, modulating the drying time in order to create different effects in the cup.
Necessity bred more innovation for the family when an earthquake in 2008 wiped out electricity and water to their area during the harvest. Unable to run the depulpers or to wash the mucilage off to produce washed lots, Francisca took inspiration from her knowledge of African coffee production and quickly built raised beds on the property. Their Natural lots caught the attention of Cafe Imports’ founder Andrew Miller, and the rest is both history and our story.
