Ureña Rojas Family - La Naciente - Chirripo, Costa Rica

The Ureña’s Love of Honey

Honey processing is core to Costa Rica’s coffee industry and passionately favored by the Ureña Rojas family. It was originally invented to reduce water consumption while still achieving phenomenal flavors similar to that of natural coffees. The Ureña approach is unique in that they don’t use colors like yellow, red, or black to label the intensity of processing. This is due to the beans oxidating at different rates so colors vary across the bed. 

They also choose to not flotation sort since they’ve noticed inconsistencies due to uncontrolled fermentation due to the water that gets absorbed into the cherry. Since this key quality control step is skipped, they compensate with added training for their pickers to ensure the cherries are at their most optimal maturity during harvest. Since they own their own dry mill, hand sorting is done there to remove defected beans.

Land Management

The Ureñas have 100 hectares of land with 60 hectares containing mature producing plants and 40 hectares of developing plants. The farm shade grows with the diverse native trees and added banana trees to maintain a healthy ecosystem. The entire Naciente farm is conveniently irrigated by a natural spring located on the hillside above.

On occasion we will come across coffee that simply blows our minds in more ways than just flavor. If you’re reading this description, it's no coincidence that this coffee was destined for you from birth.

notes: watermelon hi-chew, purple grape candy, fruity chocolate

varietals: catuai

elevation: 1700m-1800m

processing: full honey