Costa Rica Community Lot – San Lorenzo Washed

The communities program has been running with Coope Tarrazu since 2012, and was designed to help promote the individual characteristics of the coffee in ‘micro-zones’ of the Tarrazu region. San Lorenzo is one of those communities that regularly contribute to our line up of Costa Rican coffees. This year (2020) is an off year for production, meaning a slightly lower production of cherry. This is part of the natural phenology of the plant, as cherry grows on the previous years branch growth, but does mean this is even more limited than normal!

The coffee of the Tarrazú region is one of the most recognized in Costa Rica and in the world and represents around 40% of the national production. This production is between 1,200 and 1,900 meters above sea level, in ideal climate and soil conditions for cultivation. Most of the plantations are under shade, with different trees in the area.

San Lorenzo is the second district of the Canton of Tarrazú, founded in 1923 and is 3.5 km away from San Marcos de Tarrazú. Besides being so close to San Marcos, the biggest commercial point of the region, the small businesses in San Lorenzo are an important support for the economy of this community. In addition to this, the livelihood of the district is based on the coffee industry. There are approximately 211 members of this community who deliver around 3,500.00 fanegas of the coffee harvested each year.

Washed coffees here are produced in a slightly different manner than elsewhere in the world. Cherries are picked when ripe as usual, and delivered to the mill where they enter a demucilager rather than a pulper. The demucilager works by spraying pressurised water at the cherry blasting the mucilage off as well as having ‘barbs’ on the inside to remove the flesh too. Cherry enters at the bottom and is spun around inside the barbed cylinder whilst being sprayed and exits at the top as a cleaned bean in parchment.

The cleaned bean is then pushed through a centrifugal pre-dryer to quickly remove excess water before being dried in a guardiola or patios depending on demand. This process greatly reduces time and spent preparing the cherry for export, and leaves with better quality super clean coffee, as any opportunity for over-fermentation to occur has been removed.