Coffee Story
Roger Ureña began farming coffee not because knowledge and land were passed down through generations, but because of a desire to become a coffee farmer. He purchased land to farm, began growing coffee, and constructed the Santa Teresa micro-mill to improve the processing of his coffee. He is working with his son Alex and can pass along his knowledge and experience, which will hopefully live on for generations.
About Santa Teresa micromill
The Urena's Santa Teresa micro-mill is unique in many ways, but the 2000 MASL elevation is one of the most significant talking points. With many farms and micro-mills in Costa Rica, it is common to harvest cherries and bring them down to the micro-mill at lower elevations. However, Ureña's farms are more often bringing cherries to Santa Teresa for processing. With the high elevation comes much cooler temperatures and a significant diurnal shift. This process makes growing and processing coffee take longer, especially during cherry maturation, fermentation, and drying, and undoubtedly results in high-quality coffees.
The Ureñas are committed to quality, constantly experimenting with planting new varieties and trialling different processing methods. They have built many African beds for drying their special varieties and experimental fermentations. They consistently have their coffees in the top 10 in the Cup of Excellence competition in Costa Rica each year. We feel privileged to work with Roger and Alex Ureña and look forward to their annual coffee. Finca Santa Teresal is one of Roger and Alex Ureña's ten farms. They plant a wide variety of coffee and process all of their coffee at their own Santa Teresa mill. Once freshly handpicked at peak ripeness, all of Roger's coffees undergo the honey processing method, which leaves a certain amount of mucilage, or the flesh of the fruit, on the coffee seeds during processing of the cherry.
About honey-processing
Rather than fermenting under water and removing the mucilage by washing it clean from the parchment, Roger uses a mechanical demucilager to release a certain amount before drying. In general, as the amount of mucilage left on the parchment increases, so too does the colour of the honey process from white (least amount of mucilage) to black (most amount of mucilage). The honey process occurs as the sugars from the mucilage react with the environment over time, throughout the various stages of the drying process. This creates a sticky layer on the outside of the parchment that is reminiscent of honey! This specific lot is a 100% Typica Rwanda grown on Finca Santa Teresa and processed at their Santa Teresa micromill.
