Costa Rica La Pastora Yellow Honey

This is from the famous La Pastora estate in the Tarrazu region. and is a microlot of their honey process (pulp natural). Estates are starting to differentiate their different honey lots with a color, and while there isn't yet a universal definition of the different colors, the basic idea is that it serves as a record for how long they allowed to beans to sundry. So this is a "yellow" lot of Costa Rica La Pastora Honey, of the bourbon varietal, and was imported by La Minita. We bought this coffee from them last year as well and carried it through most of the fall and winter, and it was such a success that they increased the size of their "yellow" lot this year. They "honey processed" this lot of coffee by hand which means the "honey" (the fruit pulp) was left on the coffee bean 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. If in doubt, err on the side of being too light. Letting is go a degree or two to dark will get you a flat taste, and a degree or two to early gets you tartness, so take careful notes. When you get it right, you want to be able to replicate it! Keep the roast at 15 minutes or less. This goes against current roasting theory, but we almost let it stall out as it ends first cracks, and then give it more heat and less airflow for the last 30 seconds of the roast, and the bean really seems to like that. The ideal roast of this will offer you a "soft" mouthfeel that makes it so pleasant to drink. A nice honey-like sweetness, milk chocolate brownie, peach and plum. The fruitiness comes out more as it cools. It has nice thick smooth body for a honey processed coffee, which is nice.

USA Arrival: July 2023