#107 Reposado Natural-Processed Catuai Coffee Beans from Costa Rica

From the producer Selva Specialty Coffee:

El Salitre is the Alvarado Family’s premier plantation. It provides them not only with some of their best qualities, but also the majority of their volume at the mill. It was planted by the father, Johnny, around 10 years ago with catuai trees and comprises 12 hectares of area between 1700-1900masl. Besides being a young farm in an ideal climate, the family treats the land with care and do everything in their power to work in harmony with the environment. This gives us plenty of confidence that excellent qualities and volumes will be coming out of El Salitre for years to come!

Processing Reposado Natural

The family goes out and collects the cherries in the field doing their best to ensure optimal cherry selection with their harvesters. The fruit is brought to their mill and dumped into a receiving tank which is under shade. The coffee fruit is left in the tank for 3 or 4 days in order to encourage a controlled fermentation in the fruit. Then, the cherries are passed through a recycled water floating system before being put out to dry on raised beds in little piles. Similarly to the honey, the mounds are moved only once or twice a day for the first few days. As the coffee gets drier and drier the family spreads out the parchment and moves it more frequently about every hour or so. The total dry time on this coffee is 25-30 days and requires far more care when preparing for export.