"We're No. 2!" It could be the chant around the farm and bodega at Cafe Sin Limites farm, because they have placed #2 in the Cup of Excellence for 2 years running! And the name sorta lends itself to motivational chants: Coffee Without Limits? What's with that? This is also our second lot of Sin Limites for 2009, a later harvest shipment after we sold out of our first. Jaime Cardenas and his wife Mabel Barrantes are the owners of this small boutique micro mill in the Lourdes de Naranjo region of the West Valley. The farm is at 1500-1700 meters and has produced some amazing coffees in the last 3 years, as the CoE track record proves. (This year's lot was #2 Fuego, Fire, which I guess is another 'new age' sort of naming scheme). Their coffee is, like the neighboring farm Herbazu, Villa Sarchi cultivar, which is a natural mutation of Bourbon. Certainly, this is true micromill/microlot coffee from a passionate small producer. In fact, the first time I dropped in on his small bodega, Jaime was sleeping in the warehouse with the coffee! There was a bed and small TV set with a "telenovella" blaring at full volume. He is a real crafts-person when it comes to his coffee and tries numerous experiments with depulping and drying the coffee to maximize the cup results. This lot is a "miel" or "honey" coffee, meaning that some of the fruit is allowed to dry on the parchment layer on the patio. It actually looks quite lousy as green coffee, but roasts up even and has a clean, sweet flavor profile. The dry fragrance from this batch of Sin Limites has tons of cocoa powder, nutty tones (at C+ roast), and maple sweet hints. There is a shift in the wet aroma, a more focused and volatile aromatic emerges, of almond oil essence, aromatic wood, cherry fruits, rustic honey sweetness. It's definitely a bright cup with some dimension, and a bit of funky rustic notes (not unlike the farmer that produces it!) The first thing that strikes you in the cup flavors is the complex brightness; fruited acidity, apple and cherry brightness, and an interesting smoky accent. It's not one of those thin, light-bodied, "bright-clean-simple" CR coffees; it has a fat, round mouthfeel, which pairs well with the almond nutty hint in the roast taste. I also think it's a cup that needs to cool a bit to appreciate the layers of taste. Honey notes, buttered toast, and lemon balm herbal suggestions come out as the cup cools down.

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La Ponderosa is a special, super-high elevation coffee from Tarrazu, processed expertly at the Don Mayo Micro-Mill by the Bonilla Family. I met the senior, Hector in Costa Rica last year, and again when they visited in September with the Costa Rica Micromiller group. He brought his son Pablo, who is a big part of the team at Don Mayo. And I must admit, they have the coolest logo ever (a coffee bean head with the traditional Tico coffe workers hat, called a "chonete" ... something of a Gilligan type thing.) And I am very happy with how this lot of coffee arrived; sweet and balanced. It's a coffee I could drink all day long. The dry fragrance has berry fruit to it, toasted granola, dark sugar sweetness, and roasted almond. Adding the hot water, the wet aromatics sweetens with a Malt-o-meal hot cereal scent, hints of boysenberry syrup, and spicy accents of cinnamon. The cup needs some time to cool down for the flavors to really open up. It strikes me as extremely balanced in the body initially, and amber malt character in it's sweetness. The berry fruit flavors began to peek out, this time as a blackberry note at the FC roast level. The roast flavors are more nut-based in tonality, between a very mild roasted peanut and hazelnut. And more than anything, the cup is sweet. I keep thinking of amber malt syrup, hence the fact that maltose must be present in this coffee. The degree to which you convert those sugars in roasting will determine a lot of your flavor here. My favorite straddled the divide between City+ and Full City. The finish has a sweetness of panela sugar cakes, the minimally-processed sugar used in much of Latin America. This dense, Bourbon cultivar is a bit tough to read, in terms of degree-of-roast. Erring on the lighter side will yield better results. The green coffee has some "foxy" beans, which is a trade term for a sound green bean that happens to have reddish silverskin still attached to it. This comes off in as chaff. Overall it yields a classic, compact flavor profile, typical of Bourbon cultivar, being both well-structured and balanced. We also had some great SO espresso shots from the FC+ roast of the Don Mayo Ponderosa Bourbon.

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We are big fans of Helsar, and are offering several lots this year from this excellent West Valley mill, as we did last year. If you have been around Sweet Maria's site a while, you know the name. Helsar de Zarcero represents the combined efforts of Ricardo Perez and the brothers Rodriguez. Their farms are on a high ridge in the area of Alajuela, in the coffee areas of both Zarcero and Naranjo. They grow coffee, and also have formed a group of producers, for whom they process and dry the coffee to very high standards. I have visited the mill quite a few times now, and every time I see it, there are new innovations and improvements. They grow Typica, Caturra an a type called Villa Sarchi. The coffee is grown between 1650 - 1800 meters. Helsar is an excellent Micro-Mill and dry most of their top grade coffees on raised beds/screens in a covered tent (to increase heat and prevent rain damage). In fact, I was there last with Maria and Ben in the middle of a downpour, and not a single drop of water could be found on the drying patios! Coffee can be ruined so easily by small oversights in process and drying, and the Helsar boys seem to know this so well. Anyway, there care for the coffee shows in the cup. It's a classic, bright, clean Costa Rica cup. The dry fragrance has very attractive chocolate milk and cocoa powder sweet smells, as well as orange and caramel traces. Ditto on the wet aroma; caramel, soft chocolate sweetness, orange hint. The cup flavors are marked by sweet orangey citrus character, and hazelnut roast taste, especially at the City+ degree-of-roast. A more "candy-like" orange flavor is evident at first, fading into citrus peel aftertaste. The body is quite light, but silky and fits the refreshing, bright cup. It's not the most complex cup, but minimalist and "elegantly simple" would be a fair characterization. At Full City roast, there is appreciably more weight to the mouthfeel, and the cup takes on milk chocolate flavors with a slight orange emphasis. It works well under a nice, wide range of roast levels. It's a very bright, clean cup, and unlike the "Miel" or honey coffees we offer, a classic, traditional Costa Rica in that regard. I would challenge any high-profile Costa Rica coffee from other mills to go head-to-head with this Helsar lot!

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RIP = Roasted In Parchment. Whose terrible idea was it to roast coffee in parchment? Oh wait, it was mine. And yes, we might have lost it on this one. It's as unusual as the Qishr (coffee skin) tea we have offered. RIP coffee is a name we came up with for "Roasted In Parchment," which is another of our crackpot ideas. But the logic is all there: after coffee is processed at the wet mill or the pulping station, it is dried in the sun. At this stage the coffee has its outer parchment shell on it; it is called pergamino in Central America. After it is dried down to 12% moisture content, the parchment coffee is rested in silos or bags for anywhere from 30-60 days. This allows the coffee to stabilize. In the parchment shell, the dried green coffee can be stored for much longer, and is more protected from temperature and humidity changes that damage cup quality. I had toyed with the idea years ago of importing coffee in parchment, and milling it here. You can store it and dry mill it right before shipping it to the customer. The logistics never made sense, and milling is expensive and dusty. Some time last year I was in my cupping room and on a whim I started roasting some samples I had of parchment coffee. I remember seeing women in rural Guatemala roasting parchment coffee on a wood stove. What would happen? I was really surprised by the cup. It was very different, not at all unpleasant. There was tons of body, an unusual maple syrup and cocoa powder taste. It seemed like I had blended coffee with something else, but I enjoyed it! I also found that the darker roasts were my favorite. So this year while traveling in Costa Rica I asked Juan Ramon at Brumas del Zurqui Micro Mill if they would ship us parchment coffee. They did, and with a twist: this is a mix of processes, wet-processed parchment, Yellow Honey parchment and Red Honey from pulped natural process. That means the fruit of the coffee cherry was left to dry on the parchment. Rather than the pale cream color of wet-processed parchment, this has a yellow-to-red tint to it and some spots of dried coffee mucilage. That fruit layer cooks during roasting and imparts a more rustic fruity note to the coffee. See the photos to know what to expect from the roasted appearance, a smorgasbord of colors! There are a few defect beans, or some not in parchment here - remove them before roasting. The dry fragrance, wet aroma, and cup flavors all have this fruit overlay, along with smoky campfire notes, and a pleasant woody flavor. There is a tea flavor too, rose hips, hibiscus flower, herbal. I like the darker roasts, when the darker beans have an exterior that is patchy and black. These remind me of good aged coffees, with inky dark roast flavor and unique smoky notes. On the flip side ...The light roast is especially like an herbal infusion. It's certainly a very odd cup of coffee, a hybrid. I prefer the darker roasts, but remember to check out my RIP Coffee Tutorial on roasting here: http://www.sweetmarias.com/RIP_Coffee_Roasting_In_Parchment/index.html Theoretically, there is more of a fire threat here, since the parchment layer means there is more combustible material in your roast chamber. Keep your eyes on your roaster at all times for this one. I seriously doubt we are going to start any trends here, but this is a unique chance to try a coffee roasting process you might not be able to see again, and a cup that resists easy description!

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Carrizal is the name of the finca (farm) and Montes de Oro is the name of the Micro Mill that has produced this great lot. It's the work of Emilio Gamboa, Laura and their family, and a they have a beautiful farm in the Tarrazu region, overlooking San Pablo de León Cortés. The altitude is 1650 -1700 meters and they have an incredibly clean, well-organized Micro Mill, with a majority of the coffee dried on raised beds, the rest on patio. As you may already know, "Miel" means honey, and refers to the fact that much of the fruit from the coffee cherry is left on the parchment (pergamino) seed to dry. This creates a coffee with heightened body, lower acidity, chocolate and fruited hints. The sweetest roasts in the dry fragrance evaluation was the very City+ roast. It was very caramelly and honey-like. The coffee turns to chocolate as it passes to C+ and FC roast levels, but retains a milky sweetness too. The coffee opens up and reveals multifaceted fruits in the wet aroma, especially at the lightest (City) and darkest (FC+) roasts we tested. The range is from stone fruits, dried peach in particular, to guayaba/guava ... and in the darker roast, prune and berry. These aromatics are to be expected in the best coffees that undergo the "Miel" type process. (I have tasted a lot of mediocre Miel coffees in the past 2 years, so I do not take these qualities for granted - you can ruin a coffee with this method, and it takes an experienced farmer and miller to get the sweetness out of this cup while retaining a clean character overall). What strikes me with Emilio's coffee is the fact it works at all roast levels, a versatile coffee that can be "interpreted" by the person roasting it in several ways. The light roast has a honey graham cracker character, accented by lemon with a touch of rind in the finish. There is a grainy taste and mouthfeel that disappears with a little more roast, City+, where caramel, buttery sweetness and apple notes are dominant, with Toblerone toffee-chocolate flavors a bit darker. I really like this cup at FC+, a few snaps into 2nd crack. It reminds one of both classic Costa Rica character, balanced, but with the body lacking in wet-process coffees, and with that thick chocolaty body. It falls into the category of "great drinking coffee", something you want to brew up all the time, and share with others.

This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

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