Costa Rica La Perla del Cafe Micromill – Finca Chispita – Golden Honey – SL-28 – ACES – Archived

Taste: We feel honored to offer this incredible bean to our customers. Boasting a cupping score of 90, this bean produces a myriad of sugary sweet fruit flavors, balanced acidity, and a creamy smooth finish.

Roast: Take care to prolong the development stage from first crack to your desired roast by lowering the heat a bit and/or increasing air flow.  You will be rewarded with natural sweetness at all roast levels through medium/dark (Full City).  We do not recommend a dark roast – you don’t want to cook out and mask all of this premium bean’s flavors.

About: More than just bags of amazing coffee – “ACES” lots are small, exclusive, incredible offerings that empower coffee growers, showcase triumphant experiments and meticulous production, and revolutionize the coffee experience.

Carlos Barrantes’s family has owned and operated the Herbazu micromill since the early 2000s, and in the early 2010s, Don Carlos decided to go off and work independently, with a laser focus on the kinds of coffees he wants to produce. He and his wife, Diana, own five small farms and La Perla Del Cafe Micromill—”micro” being the key word here. Not only do the Barrantes only produce about 300 bags a year, their dedication to quality and incredibly high mean they focus on quality over quantity in all ways. They even work with the exact same group of pickers every year, a group of 45 indigenous people from Panama who travel to the farms for work every season, and with whom the Barrantes keep in touch, like family, the rest of the year.

These close relationships and exact practices allow them to work meticulously: Pickers focus on the cherry that’s the color ofsangre de toro,or “bull’s blood,” and Don Carlos and Doña Diana trust the pickers so much they don’t even have float tanks at the mill. Workers and visitors alike are made to cover or remove their shoes before stepping into the drying area to avoid trailing dust and dirt, and the receiving and depulping stations at the mill are sparkling clean, as though they were brand new.

The Barrantes’ obsession with details translates in the cup year after year. Why do they pay such close attention? “We are not just selling a product,” says Diana. “We are selling a beverage that someone is drinking.” The couple appreciates the experience that a very fine coffee can offer a consumer, and they want to ensure that every coffee that leaves the mill is memorable and remarkable in its flavor.

The mill produces mostly Honey coffees, and Carlos likes to experiment with different varieties: He currently grows Gesha, Villa Lobos, Typica, Villa Sarchi, and SL-28. (He was the first producer in Costa Rica to be given SL-28, and rather than hoard the special variety for himself, he has distributed seeds to friends and neighbors for the past few years.) Don Carlos believes that growing nontraditional varieties, in addition to focusing on honey and natural processing, will be what allows him to differentiate La Perla’s coffee from others in the region.

*Microlot Coffee Offerings are sourced from innovative producers in innovative ways, from super high-end limited-edition ACES lots to cupping competitions and auction lots, to variety-specific separations and those coffees that are traceable down to an individual producer. Farmers are paid quality premiums for any microlot coffee, which reflects the extra planning, effort, labor, and attention to detail required to produce them, as well as rewarding the ultimate job well done.

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