COSTA RICA Don Sabino Natural

About This Coffee

When our Head Roaster Keita first tasted this coffee during cupping, his immediate impression was: “a clean natural.”It has the fruit-forward character you expect from a natural process, yet without heaviness or excessive fermentation notes. The mouthfeel is smooth and pleasant, making it a beautifully easy cup to drink. Rather than the floral, berry-driven character often found in Ethiopian naturals, Steven Vargas’s natural offers a brighter fruit profile reminiscent of apple and white peach, with a clear yet full-bodied texture.It is a natural process coffee that remains remarkably clean from start to finish. Don Sabino originally began with washed coffee processing.Over time, the farm expanded into honey processing, and today much of its production is focused on natural process coffees. Washed processing requires great precision in both equipment and green coffee management.Because this farm has built its experience from that foundation, it is able to produce natural coffees with very little unwanted flavor and an impressively clean cup. This lot comes from a carefully managed farm blessed with the volcanic soils of Costa Rica’s Central Valley, where herbicides and pesticides are used very sparingly. The variety is Typica, one of the traditional Arabica varieties.Because Typica tends to produce lower yields and is more vulnerable to disease, it is now considered one of the more precious coffee varieties. What makes this lot even more interesting is that it is a single-variety Typica processed as a natural.Typica is often expressed through washed processing, but by finishing it as a natural, this lot brings together the soft elegance of Typica with the sweetness and fruitiness of the natural process.