Costa Rica Tarrazu – La Esperanza Estate Familia Monge – Natural Processed

Description

A very fruit forward, winy, floral and sweet, natural processed coffee.

There is nowhere like Costa Rica when it comes to coffee processing and micro-mill innovations. Just ask Rodolfo Monge who has dedicated more than 40 years cultivating coffee at his 12-acre farm called La Esperanza Familia

Monge located in La Esperanza de Tarrazu within the province of San José. Much of the recent innovation has been fueled by Rodolfo’s son, Gustavo Monge. While Rodolfo has years of experience cultivating coffee, he has only been processing the family’s coffee for the last four years in large part because of Gustavo’s interest in creating traceability for his family’s coffee.

The father and son pair now work together using their own micro-mill where cherry selection and drying are meticulously executed. This natural processed coffee is an example of precisely executed methods of drying coffee inside the cherry, which eliminates the need to wash the coffee and greatly reduces the environmental impact, while at the same time, producing an expressive cup profile.

Tasting Notes: To see this cup shine, light to medium roasts are the way to go! Medium acidity, lighter bodied, delicate, sweet cup with strong red fruit tones (strawberry like). Hints of citric and floral jump right out with the fruitiness. Pulls some balance with a little nutty/tea like tones at lighter roasts giving it some awesome depth.  Holds up well as one pushes towards second crack, turns the nutty/herbal tones into a rich chocolaty factor with fruity highlights. A bit rougher of a dark tone close to the dark roast mark, touching or into second crack, but everyone still liked it. Touching or into second crack gets a bit bitter with more of an oaky barrel aged tone than sweet red fruit.

Roasting Notes: High chaff, but very even roasting for a fruit forward natural. A lovely, clean screen of coffee.  With fruity naturals there is much debate on setup time. Some will love it best after 12-24 hours, others live by 5+ days before drinking. The good news, we found it very tasty regardless of setup. The fruitiness does mellow a little bit over time but the depth of flavors increases.