TECHNICAL DETAILS
Origin: Costa Rica, San Marcos, Tarrazú ( exactly here )
Process: Honey
Altitude: 2000 masl
Varietal: Catuai
Producer: Carlos Montero
Harvest: 2024
Tasting notes: Chocolate, lemon, floral
WHY WE LIKE IT
This coffee is sweet, fragrant, and fresh. It reminds us of a chocolatey citrus fruit, with soft floral notes and a slight complexity. It has a light body, with a silky mouthfeel due to the natural sugars that remain in the bean during processing. Despite having a vibrant acidity, it has a perfect balance, where sweetness and acidity are perfectly balanced. It is perfect to drink alone, where its more citrusy character will be accentuated, and if you drink it with milk, its chocolate sweetness will be accentuated.
RECIPE
You can prepare it in your Italian coffee maker or if you have an espresso machine:
It uses 17 grams of dry coffee to extract 36 grams of total beverage in a cup in a time of 25 to 27 seconds.
Variables to take into account:
- KB90
- Mill: Mahlkonig E68S
- Baskets: VST 17gr
- Water: Pentair 75ppm
- Pressure : 7 bars
For filter:
We use 20 grams of ground coffee and 320 grams of final water at 93C. We make three pours. The first one is 50 gr, we wait 30 seconds and we make two pours of 135 grams in a total time of 3 and a half minutes.
Variables to take into account:
- METHOD: V60
- MILL: EK43
- WATER: 70 ppm
HISTORY
The Montero family has been visionaries, pioneers and drivers of the micro mill revolution in Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Carlos Montero has been a lifelong coffee farmer and comes from a long line of farmers. He had the vision to process his own coffee fruit and work more directly with consumers, building Don Eli, named after his father, in 2014. Carlos was also instrumental in encouraging many other coffee farmers in the Tarrazú region to do the same and begin building relationships with roasters. Jacob has taken over the wet mill over the years and has honed his passion for processing the fruit. This year they have added a humble dry mill to prepare parchment for export. Always expanding their knowledge, improving quality and strengthening their direct relationships.
Carlos originally grew apple trees on this land, and the terraces created for them have been key to the success of the coffee trees, allowing them to thrive in this unique environment. This agricultural legacy has given rise to this plot, known as the Manzanal . The extraordinary altitude and soil fertility conditions have been instrumental in producing high-quality coffee, although recent climate changes have made cultivation increasingly challenging and unpredictable.
VARIETY AND PROCESS
The variety of this coffee is Catuai .
Honey - Carlos and Jacob know that good coffee cherry picking is critical to achieving high quality. The family has worked with the same team of pickers for decades and pays extra for ripe fruit picking. The cherries arrive at the Don Eli wet mill and are left to rest for a couple of days before going through the pulper and mechanical demucilaginator, which removes half of the mucilage. The parchment is spread out on raised drying beds in a medium-thin layer and is moved manually every few hours during the day. After about 12 days, the parchment reaches its optimal moisture level and is bagged for dry processing a few weeks later.
