Aquiares Honey

We are very pleased to be releasing this Red Honey from Aquiares in conjunction with an Anaerobic Natural (our second year in a row). The Aquiares Estate is lef by Diego Robelo, whom we have had the pleasure of meeting this year.

To process a Red Honey, the coffee pulp (cherry skin) is removed, but the mucilage is kept in-tact on the coffee bean. The mucilage is very sweet, and its sugards are absorbed into the bean throughout the drying stage — this gives the coffee a greater dimension in the final cup. 'Red' refers to the colour of the mucilage as it dries, and this mucilage is then hulled off with the parchment during milling. This Red Honey from Aquiares is dried on raised beds for 18-24 days.

The Centroamericano variety is a hybrid variety — this is a cross of the Sarchimor T-5296 and a wild Rume Sudan variety. This new variety has complex nutritional needs, and thrives with the growing conditions at Aquiares. This particular variety is high yielding, rust resistant, and has a complex, elegant profile.

The Farm:

The name Aquiares means “land between rivers” and the Aquiares Estate is led by Diego Robelo.

After taking over the farm from his father, Alfonso Robelo, Diego has launched into a fresh approach to specialty coffee and has explored many new potentials for the farm through excellent agricultural management, new coffee varieties, and further experimental processes. Aquiares is now a known trailblazer among specialty coffee producers in Costa Rica and throughout all of Central America.

Aquiares is an example of innovation and perseverance whose benefits extend beyond the farm and workers and serve as a model for sustainable, equitable production for the broader coffee industry. There is a big focus on carbon neutrality, and their efforts to calculate their carbon emissions has been verified under the International Panel on Climate Change norms. The carbon measurements and emission reductions are a part of Costa Rica’s Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action. In addition to capturing carbon, the farm’s protected biological corridors have long ensured the wellbeing of local animals and plants. Aquiares also welcomes researches from around the world to conduct agricultural and environmental studies on their land. Projects have included investigating the benefits of agroforestry on soil health and observing the diverse bird and wildlife species that thrive in an agroecological environment.

The Region:

The region of Turrialba is Costa Rica’s hidden coffee gem. The city of Turrialba is a modest agricultural town in the Province of Cartago, and the coffee farms spread throughout the Canton of Turrialba, from smallholder plots to the country’s largest estates, produces coffee with a range of cup profiles and interesting genetic legacies.

Turrialba is home to CATIE — the Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Education — one of Central America’s premier crop research and development sites as well as one of Latin America’s largest living coffee tree variety collections. Along with other research institutions, CATIE helped produce many of the hybrid and selected coffee varieties now common in Costa Rica and neighbouring countries.

The Turrialba Volcano is still active today — it began erupting more consistently starting in 2014 — and the region’s volcanic soil is rich with nutrients. The area’s farmers grow vegetables and sugarcane as well as coffee, and landowners in the lower area raise cattle. Turrialba’s productive land supplies much of Costa Rica’s domestic needs and coffee prepared for export passes through the area’s private mills, which are more common here than the cooperatives organised in other Cantons.