Costa Rica, Alajuela Red Honey Warm Anaerobic (RHWA) Geisha Typica

Micro Lot Single Estate 

Notes: Concord Grape, Agave Syrup, Lilac, White Cherry

Roast: Light(City)

Varietal: Geisha and Typica

Elevation: 1600m

Process: Red Honey Warm Anaerobic

Farmer: Alejo Castro

Estate: Volcan Azul

Introducing our third lot from Volcan Azul. If you haven't realized by now,  I'm a huge fan of Alejo and Volcan Azul. His coffees are just so wonderfully colorful and beautiful in the cup. This Geisha/Typica lot creates an incredible experience in your mouth. The first sip hits your tongue delicate and sweetly, fruit forward and very reminiscent of other impeccable Geisha lots I've had in the past. When the coffee moves to back of your tongue is when the magic happens. The acidity and bite from the Typica starts to grab on and sits heavy and pleasantly.

I got to ask Alejo about his warm anaerobic honey process and heres what he had to say.

"Everything begins at harvest, Its fundamental that we pick the cherries at optimum level of ripeness. This will allow us to have more complex flavors in our cup of coffee. We have found that measuring the brix content of the mucilage of the coffee cherries we can know the best time to pick them. In our farm we usually start at 22 % brix content (depending on the variety) but we have had measurements of 28 even 30%.

The first step is to measure the cherries coming from the plantation by truck or tractor. We measure the cherries by volume using a box of 200 liters; 2 of these will give us 1 fanega (400 liters) that will give us around 46kg of green coffee. After this we separate floaters which normally are unripen, overdried or defective cherries. At this step we also clean the coffee from branches, leaves, dirt, and any other foreign matter that comes from the field. After this step we must decide which process are we going to give to the lot we just have harvested.

Next we pulp the cherries by pressuring them against a centrifuge. We can control the amount of pressure so harder under ripe or over dried cherries will not be pulped and we can separate them in a screen. With 100% of the mucilage still on the beans, we put them  inside the anaerobic tanks with a valve that lets the oxygen out and will be replaced with CO2. Then we are developing different recipes by measuring time, temperature, ph or acidity of the mucilage and brix content of the mucilage inside the tank. Its important to say that we are not adding strange stuff to this process, we just want to enhance flavors we naturally have in our coffee with the help of the autochthonous yeast from our farm. After this coffee is taken out of the tank and taken to the drying patio or raised beds and stirred each day from 8am to 2pm. At 2 pm we start covering the coffee with plastic, so we maintain its warmth during the night and keeping it from gaining humidity from the mist we normally have during the early morning. This process will take between 7 and 16 days".

Filter

• COFFEE-TO-WATER RATIO: 1:15
• COFFEE GRIND SIZE: Medium fine
  
• COFFEE AGE: 7-14 days, ideally
• COFFEE DOSE: 17 grams
• WATER WEIGHT: 255 mL
• WATER TEMPERATURE: 196°F-199°F
• TARGET BREW TIME: 02:30 - 03:00

Espresso

• DOSE: 18 to 20 grams 
• YIELD: 32 to 36 grams 
• TIME: 22 to 26 seconds
• RATIO: 1 : 1.8
• TEMPERATURE: 196°F - 199°C