Volcan Azul - Costa Rica - Red Honey Geisha

Volcan Azul - Costa Rica - Red Honey Geisha

SFr. 28.50
Whole Bean:
Quantity:


Flavor: Red apples & chocolate chip cookies
Cupping score: 89+
Origin: Costa Rica
Region: Alajuela
Producer: Alejo Castro Kahle 
Varietal: Geisha
Process: Red Honey
Altitude: 1500-1700 MASL 
Roasted for: Filter - Light roast

 

Red Honey

First, we pulp the cherries by pressuring them against a centrifuge. We can control the pressure so harder cherries (under-ripe or over-dried) will not be pulped, and we can separate them in a screen. With 100% of the mucilage still on the beans, we take them to the drying patio or raised beds, where we let the lot unstirred and sometimes covered in plastic for around 24 hours. Then we start stirring them each day from 8 am to 2 pm. At 2 p.m., we begin covering the coffee with plastic to keep it warm at night and won´t gain humidity from the mist we usually have during the early morning. This process will take between 9 and 12 days, depending on the weather. We can also pre-dry the coffee on the “patio” or raised beds and then give the final percentage of humidity in the mechanical dryers where we use low temperatures. We don´t dry it continuously, giving the coffee a rest to slowly bring the moisture out of the center of the bean.

Volcan Azul

Alejo belongs to the fifth generation of coffee growers. He enjoys experimenting with different varieties and processes, as a result of which he is now able to offer this excellent micro lot of natural Caturra produced at his Hacienda Colima farm.

Coffee production began in America in the mid-19th-century. It was at that same time that two pioneering families originally from Europe set up a coffee business, the Spanish Castro-Jimenez family in Costa Rica, and the German Kahle family in the Chiapas region of Mexico. Alejo belongs to the fifth generation of the Castro-Kahle family, which has been growing coffee on the slopes of the Poas Volcano in central Costa Rica for more than 100 years.
Coffee is not a specialty for the Castro-Kahle clan, but a tradition. They cultivate Caturra, Catuai, Geisha, SL28, Villasarchi, Sarchimor, Obata, San Isidro, and Venecia.
The family has chosen to conserve some 200 hectares of forest located above their coffee fields in order to preserve the local biodiversity. They have also bought 1,500 hectares of primary forest in the Osa Peninsula in the south of the country.
Fauna and flora are sacrosanct in Costa Rica, and according to Alejo, it must be what gives the coffee so much flavor. The soils on the slopes of the Poas Volcano are enriched with the volcanic dust that falls after each eruption.
Alejo has a real passion for the different coffee varieties and processes, and each year tries his hand at innovating, combining, concocting, and refining his coffees just like an alchemist.