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Bright strawberry, ripe raspberry and kiwi form the bright opening of this coffee. Heaps of chocolate notes blend with the syrupy body and complex acid profile of the cup to create the impression of hot cocoa with hints of yogurt-dipped strawberries. The cup finishes with green notes of dehydrated kiwi, herbal dark chocolate, and floral geranium.

This coffee is the product of the Coope Atenas cooperative and the coffee mill they operate. This particular lot was processed as a blonde honey. Blonde honey processed coffees have the smallest amount of fruit left on the drying coffee seed, which imparts a marked change in resulting flavor, but not as dramatic a change as its amber honey, black honey, or full natural counterpart.
There are roughly 1,200 members in the cooperative, all based in Valle Occidental (West Valley) Alajuela province, on the west coast of the country. The country’s rugged, mountainous interior long prevented the transportation of goods from one side of the country to the other. The construction of the Panama Canal would eventually mitigate this issue, but this geographical feature was rather crippling for farmers on the west coast of the nation in years prior. The lack of regular trade routes connecting the west of Costa Rica to the consumer markets in Europe severely impeded economic growth on the west coast. The irregularity of the trade ships increased the leverage of the trade ships to push down prices paid to coffee farmers. In defense of seaborne the distance and danger of the trip around Cape Horn made the trade of perishable agricultural products impossible and without regular visits, Costa Rican farmers lacked the economic incentive to grow, process, and bring coffee to market. Fortunately, in the early 1840’s Guernsey Captain William Le Lacheur, saw an opportunity to expand his small fruit trade business in the failure of the transportation market to meet the needs of these Costa Rican farmers. He signed agreements with Costa Rican coffee producers to regularly ship their coffee to European markets. The endeavor was so successful that Lacheur reassigned his fruit carrying ships to Costa Rica and commissioned a dozen new ships to assist his Costa Rican coffee business.
In addition to coffee, Lacheur used his life and shipping fleet in further service of Costa Rica. When American freebooters invaded Nicaragua, re-legalized slavery, and threatened to do the same in Costa Rica, Lacheur granted use of his fleet to move the men and material needed to defend Costa Rica and end the threat freebooters posed to the entire region. As a result, the Costa Rican army was able to deploy to the Nicaraguan border far quicker than anticipated, the energy and resource depletion a long trek through the jungle would have entailed. Subsequently, the Costa Rican army was able to surprise and thoroughly defeat the invading Freebooters at the Battle of Santa Rosa, which removed the invaders from the country and helped pave the way to the total elimination of the freebooter menace.
Lacheur further arranged to transport the sons of many of his Costa Rican associates to England where he also had arranged for their formal education at boarding schools and universities where they became doctors, lawyers, business people, and other types of skilled professionals that added tremendous intellectual value to the nation. This early investment in both Costa Rican coffee and the families that made that investment possible is credited with the introduction of soccer to Costa Rica as well as the economic success and social stability of Costa Rica relative to the neighboring countries which have struggled considerably with both. Lacheur’s legacy is one shaped by hard work, intelligent decision-making, and a strict adherence to human decency. The reverberations of that legacy exist in this coffee.

A brew ratio of 1:15–1:16 with 200°F produces a good, balanced cup