El Bosque, Costa Rica

The town of Piedra de Rivas, nestled in the mountains radiating from the massive Cerro Chirripó, is home to 10 coffee-growing families who decided to join together to produce some of the finest specialty coffees in Costa Rica. Hermes Calderón is the glue that keeps everything together in this community, not only producing amazing coffees at his two farms, El Cerro and El Bosque, but also processing all the coffees from the community at the Los Crestones Micro-Mill.

This selection from his original farm, El Bosque, is a great example of what can happen when farmers take ownership of the entire process of coffee production. Instead of processing his coffee cherries in his usual style, for this lot, Hermes decided to process the fruit down to the beans in a style similar to what is traditional in Kenya. This double fully washed offering is balanced and clean as are many coffees we find from Los Crestones. But with a floral aroma and notes of blackberry, red apple, and green tea, the depth of flavor in this coffee separated it from the rest. Rather than include it in our larger micromill offering from Los Crestones, we decided this year to honor Hermes’ hard work by letting his coffee stand on its own!