Berries, floral notes, almond, vanilla and cacao, buttery, medium acidity with an elderflower finish

• Process: Thermic Natural 
• Varietal: Esperanza (F1-Hybrid)
• Region: Los Santos, Tablón del Guarco
• Producer:  Don Alexis Coffee
• Altitude: 1750m
• Drying: Sun dried for approximately 30 days

Owned by the Ramirez-Navarro family, its founder and father of the family Mr. Alexis Ramirez was a farmer that dedicated his entire life to agriculture.

In 2015 as an overcoming challenge, they made the big step of building their own micro-mill, "Los Campos" with the idea of processing the coffee themselves in order to focus on the quality and traceability of their micro-lots and stop depending on the cooperative system. Working via direct trade has always been a dream for the family, reason why working with Grounds has been such a milestone. 

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The main variety they cultivate is Caturra-Catuai, although they are taking new steps into planting F-1 Hybrid varieties on their farm. Now they also have the Esperanza variety. So we can expect to see new genetic innovation in their future offer. These new plants come from Gaia Artisan Coffee, also our partners.

Many of their lots are processed using fermentation techniques (aerobic and anaerobic), reason why their coffees tend to be complex, sweet and fruity.

THE ESPERANZA VARIETY

Is an F-1 hybrid, crossbreed of Sarchimor T-5296 and wild Ethiopia ET-25 variety, developed by various Central American coffee research institutes including World Coffee Reasearch. Esperanza combines high cup quality with high resistance to disease.

Esperanza means hope in English, to indicate the hope that experimental varieties like this offer for the future of coffee farming in a changing climate.

It makes up a very complex cup, rich, creamy, slightly sweet and syrupy, with clean citrus notes.

• FERMENTATION PROCESS

  1. Fruit picking.

  2. The whole cherries are rolled in a black plastic to ferment inside the greenhouse or solar dryer. Particular microbes resist the temperature of 40-45C fermenting each batch at a constant temperature. The exposure to the heat starts to breakdown the natural sugars of the coffee cherries, partially caramelizing them. 

  3. Sun dried for approximately 30 days.

  4. Stored in parchment until preparation for export.

  This inventive process gives the coffee an exceptionally funky, sweet and fruity flavor as well as a round and balanced cup.