Costa Rica La Naciente Black Honey

From up in the Talamanca Mountains looking out at the Pacific Ocean, Sol Naciente Estate claims to be an expert at honey process coffees. This is a "Full Honey" (also known as a black honey), and while there isn't yet a universal definition of the different colors, the basic idea is that it demonstrates how often they turn the beans while they are sun-drying and how long they are allowed to sun dry. The shortest process is the White, and then Yellow, and then Red, and then Black. The longer you go, the more fruity flavors you get. A red and a black are getting pretty close to being a natural, but will have creamier mouthfeel and less fruit than natural processed coffees.

They "honey processed" this lot of coffee by hand which means the "honey" (the fruit pulp) was left on the coffeebean in order to give it an extra dimension of flavor and sweetness.

A few degrees difference does give you very different results and it's a pretty easy coffee to mess up. It is a delicate bean that is susceptible to scorching, so if you have a drum roaster, don't preheat it above 350 degrees, and go lower than that if you can. Then nudge the heat up gently, evenly, give it plenty of time to get through the 1st cracks, maybe wait 20 seconds more, let it out. We give it a burst of heat and less airflow for the last 30 seconds of the roast, and keep the roast to 15 minutes or less. It tastes fruitier and has a very nice fruit-esque character on the edges of your tongue (strawberry and apricot?) paired with creamy milk chocolate. The sweetness makes it easy to drink.

USA Arrival: August 2022