Specialty Green Coffee Exporters from Dota Tarrazú — Sourcing for Asia & the Middle East
Napoleon Contreras Until the late 1990s, most coffee in Costa Rica followed the same path: cherries from many different farms went to large cooperative or private mills, where they were processed and blended together. It was efficient, but it meant an exceptional lot from one farm could disappear into a blend with everyone else’s. Small Mills, Traceable … Read more
Before Geisha became one of the most sought-after coffees in the world, it passed through Costa Rica — a part of the story that is easy to miss because Panama gets most of the credit. From Ethiopia to CATIE Geisha (also spelled Gesha) is an Ethiopian landrace variety, first documented in the Gori Gesha forest … Read more
Most commodity coffee is priced off the “C-price” — the benchmark set by Arabica futures traded on the Intercontinental Exchange in New York. It is a real, useful number, but it was built to price interchangeable commodity coffee, not a specific farm’s specialty lot. The C-Price Is a Floor, Not a Fair Price On top … Read more
Washed, honey, and natural are the three processing methods you will see on almost every green coffee listing. They describe what happens to the coffee cherry between harvest and drying — and that step changes the cup as much as variety or altitude does. Washed The skin, fruit, and mucilage around the bean are mechanically … Read more
A few basic, widely-agreed practices for handling green coffee before you roast it, and roasted coffee after — nothing exotic, just the fundamentals that make the most difference. Storing Green Coffee Keep green coffee in a cool, dry place, out of direct sunlight, ideally in a breathable bag rather than sealed airtight. Green coffee is … Read more
Dota and Tarrazu are both part of Los Santos, a coffee-growing zone in Costa Rica’s central highlands. Our farm is in Santa Maria de Dota, inside this zone — here is what actually defines the growing conditions here, without the generic “origin story” language that could describe almost any highland coffee region. Altitude and Soil … Read more
Of the five varieties we grow on our farm in Dota, Tarrazu, Geisha is the one buyers ask about most — and the one with the smallest harvest. Here is what we can say about it honestly, based on where and how it grows on our farm, without repeating claims we cannot back up. Where … Read more
If you roast coffee — at home or in a small roastery — you will eventually choose between two ways to buy green coffee: from a marketplace that sources lots from many different farms, or directly from the farm that grew it. Both exist for good reasons, but they are not the same thing, and … Read more