Balanced, bittersweet, and with just a touch of acidity, chocolate biscotti, raw sugar , and walnut.
Hacienda La Pradera is a 181 hectare farm in the highland region of Tarrazú. The farm is heavily planted in Caturra, with smaller populations of Catuaí, Bourbon, Pacamara as well. While they do various versions of honey processing, this lot is what’s considered their “fully washed”, which for them means the coffee is depulped using a mechanical demucilager but not fermented, which is typical in Costa Rica. While this process uses very little water and forgoes tank fermentation, they do rinse the coffee after removing the skin and most of the fruit which helps to clean up the green coffee seed before sending to the drying patios.
This decaf is an impressive coffee, and testament to the job well done by the folks at Swiss Water. We’ve been sending our coffees to Swiss for decaffeination for a few years now, and are continually impressed with how much of the original profile is retained after processing. “Water process” is as clean as it sounds, using only water to swell the beans and separate out the caffeine, leaving much of the volatile compounds that affect aroma and taste intact. After all, decaf drinkers should enjoy high quality, fresh tasting coffee too, and this lot lives up to that expectation!
- Origin: Costa Rica
- Region: Dota, Tarrazu
- Producer: La Pradera
- Altitude: 1550m
- Cultivars: Caturra, Catuaí, Bourbon
- Grade: SHB
- Processing: Wet Process, then SWP Decaf
- Sourcing: Sweet Maria’s