Costa Rica Sonora SL28 Natural

SL28 is Kenya's famous coffee variety that is now starting to appear with top producers in other parts of the world. Producer Alberto Guardia, who has more than 20 varieties on his farm, produces micro-lots of enormously high quality and we buy his coffee every year. This SL28 has everything you could want from a naturally dried coffee; high sweetness, great fullness and an amazing balanced fruitiness. The mouthfeel is smooth and rich. Enjoy the coffee in all possible brewing methods, it will taste great both as espresso and pour over.

This lot of SL28 coffee underwent Natural processing at Hacienda Sonora's micromill. The Natural process at Sonora is unique in that it completely omits the use of raised drying beds. As part of Sonora's focus on scalability and efficiency, combined with rigid cupping sessions, Diego found the best quality in drying the coffee cherries on large black sheets made of braided plastic threads known as zaran.

Harvested cherries are first floated with fresh spring water to sort out any defects or impurities that come from the fields. The zaran is laid out on short cut grass fields and coffee cherries are spread out in thin layers. Cherries enjoy direct sunlight from the morning into the afternoon. At the end of each day, the large sheets of zaran are rolled up with a tractor and stacked as a pyramid overnight. Drying takes around two weeks to reach 14% humidity, at which point the coffee is stored in Sonora's warehouse to rest. Shortly before going through the on-site dry mill, the drying process is finished in dryers known as "guardiolas." The coffee is finished and prepared for export in Sonora's dry mill, where it is rigorously sorted for screen size, density, and color using the latest optical technologies.

FARM DESCRIPTION:

Hacienda Sonora is a family farm located in the Central Valley of Costa Rica at the foot of the Poas Volcano in Carrillo, Alajuela. Alberto Guardia took the farm over in the 1970’s as the fourth generation of coffee producers in the family. He planted coffee over the majority of the land, making coffee production the main source of income for the farm.

The farm covers approximately 100 hectares of land, including 65 hectares of shaded coffee and 35 hectares of wild forest reserve. Coffee is grown here surrounded by diverse trees and other vegetation, providing excellent conditions for production and improving the chemistry of the already rich volcanic soil. Thanks to the diverse ecosystem at Sonora, many species of birds and animals call the farm their natural habitat.

Alberto and Diego carry on the family’s long history of caring for the environment at Hacienda Sonora. By using only Natural and Honey processes they reduce water usage and save three gallons of water per pound of coffee that would have been used for Washed processing. 100% of the power consumed by the farm is generated from renewable energy sources on the property, including harvesting power from a freshwater stream using a special turbine called a Pelton Wheel. This energy supplies power to the coffee mill and generates an amount of free electricity for workers living on the farm.