Costa Rica: La Minita BRT Peaberry, Tarrazu

This microlot peaberry comes from Hacienda La Minita's Beneficio Río Tarrazú (BRT), the mill at the heart of La Minita's operation in Costa Rica's famed Tarrazú region. BRT is widely regarded as one of the finest coffee mills in the world, blending traditional methods with modern technology. The mill runs on its own hydroelectric power and dries coffee with a biomass furnace fueled by coffee fruit by-products, nearly eliminating the need for firewood. BRT accepts only fully ripe cherries from the small producers it works with, and helps educate them on fruit standards. In 1997 the mill received Costa Rica's Bandera Blanca award for ecologically sustainable processing.

Peaberries are a natural anomaly: normally two seeds grow in each coffee cherry and press together, creating the familiar flat-sided bean. In a peaberry, only one seed develops, resulting in a single small, round bean. Peaberries make up only a small fraction of each harvest, and La Minita separates them out of the preparation to create this 100% peaberry SHB lot. According to La Minita, the peaberry is a little more intense in acidity, body and flavor than the flat bean, and its round shape tumbles evenly in the roaster.

This lot is fully washed, graded Strictly Hard Bean, and Rainforest Alliance Certified, which supports better infrastructure, a more sustainable ecosystem, and farming education for the people and land it comes from.

Cupping Notes: Dried cherry, chocolate, and brown sugar.