Costa Rica Don Alfonso Aquiares

Region: Turrialba
Altitude: 1200–1400masl
Variety: Centroamericano
Processing: Natural

Tasting Notes: A big coffee leading with heady tropical fruit. Ripe berry, toasted almond and warm spice add dimension while a syrupy body rounds out the experience.

This is the second coffee we’ve bought from the renowned Aquiares Estate. The last time we roasted their coffee was in 2021, so we’re thrilled to welcome them back into our offering. Ludwika, our head of coffee, met Diego Robelo, general manager of the estate, when she first tasted samples of this lot earlier this year. She was struck by his boundless energy and excitement about innovation. As the oldest coffee estate in Costa Rica, the people behind Aquiares bring expertise to every stage of production. Both of these -- their deep knowledge and drive for improvement -- show in this exceptional coffee. 

This lot is a very limited “Don Alfonso” microlot, named after Don Alfonso Robelo, patriarch of one of the three families who own the farm. The Don Alfonso line is a quality-focused  collaboration between our importer, Mercanta, and Diego Robelo, who is also Don Alfonso’s son. There were several different lots available this year, including several different ones using experimental fermentation techniques. We chose a straight up natural processed lot. 

Though Caturra is the main varietal grown on the farm, this coffee is one hundred percent Centroamericano variety, a hybrid of Rume Sudan, an Ethiopian landrace variety, and Sarchimor, which is resistant to coffee leaf rust. Developed by a variety of different Central American coffee research institutes, it marries high cup quality with resilience. It’s what’s known as an F1 hybrid (meaning first generation hybrid), which are varieties created by crossing genetically distinct parents. F1 hybrids are still relatively new in coffee agriculture. Only a handful have become commercially available to farmers in the last 15 years, and only in select countries. But according to WCR, because of their vigour, they’re likely to be a key to building a sustainable coffee industry in the future. 

Aquiares has found the Centroamericano very well-suited to the farm’s high elevation (grown above 1,200 metres in most cases) and it consistently yields a quality cup. The variety’s profile lends itself well to honey and natural processing, which is why the Robelos decided to process this small lot using the natural method.

Though Costa Rican farmers are famous for developing the method of honey processing, Aquiares Estate is in a particularly rainy, humid part of the country—not ideal for natural and honey processing. ​​According to Robelo, when they first started processing naturals and honeys, “everyone told us we were crazy. You are never going to make honeys and naturals in Turrialba. We decided to prove them wrong.” 

This microlot was picked by a special team of skilled harvesters who are paid well above the daily rate for their exceptional skill in picking the ripest cherries at each pass. The pickers do seven passes of the trees to be sure they get every cherry. From there the cherries are rinsed and sun-dried on a ceramic patio for two days before moving to a specially built climate controlled greenhouse where they’re dried for 10 more days. The last drying step is one day in a mechanical dryer to reach the ideal moisture content. The coffee is milled and then kept in dry parchment until the final dry milling just before export. 

The challenges of climate change and pests require constant experimentation with new varieties that can adapt better to future conditions. Robelo has led much of the new charge towards new variety experimentation. He began his post as ‘innovation manager’ in 2013 and has developed collaborations with World Coffee Research (WCR) and the Costa Rican Coffee Institute (ICAFE), including an experimental garden for Central American Coffee varieties for WCR. Throughout the season,workers from the community care for the trees: pruning, fertilising, weeding and protecting them.

Aquiares Estate sits high on the fertile slopes of Turrialba Volcano. Established by British farmers in 1890, Aquiares was one of the first estates to produce and export Costa Rican coffee. In 1971, the farm was purchased by its current owners—three families who have worked together with the farm’s staff and community to implement a modern model of sustainable agriculture. The farm manages the entire coffee production chain, from seedling production to plant cultivation, harvesting and milling. 

Environmental stewardship, including planting shade trees, using natural fertilisers to boost soil health and, in 2012, becoming the first farm in Costa Rica to fulfil the requirements of the Rainforest Alliance Climate Module. Since 2015 the farm has operated as carbon neutral, most years achieving negative carbon emissions. 

The modern focus on the social welfare of the farm workers and the wider community is a main priority of the Robelos and their co-owners and is in contrast to the estate’s colonial roots. Originally, the farm owned the houses where employees lived, but in 1992, under Don Alfonso’s management, the farm started a project to enable people to own their own houses. Each worker was given a bonus for his or her years of service, lots were priced at a fraction of the local rate, and assistance was given to apply for a government house fund. Today, around 15% of Aquiares residents work on the farm (many have gone on to become school teachers, doctors, etc) and 96% of these own their own home, giving them the option to take a path for their future of their own choice. The town has its own school, youth sports program, recycling committee, early childhood nutrition centre and a church built in 1925, which is a National Architectural Historic Monument. Their website states, “The coffee farm and the community are one in Aquiares, both are dependent on each other.”

The skilled hands of the pickers represent the farm’s most valuable asset. During the harvest pickers hail from the community of Aquiares, nearby towns and even from the neighbouring countries of Nicaragua and Panama. The farm ensures that all workers have a safe work environment and a comfortable place to live. Workers coming from further away can live in onsite housing and use a children’s daycare. The farm sponsors doctors visits for pickers and their families twice a week where nutritional health advice is also given.To take better care of its field workers, Aquiares has established first-of-its-kind physical therapy sessions and also a daily warm-up routine of exercise before work. Many pickers return each year,confirming success in providing a secure home in Aquiares.

Aquiares is strongly committed to, and has become an international leader in, environmental sustainability. The farm has long seen the connection between agricultural, environmental and social health. By planting more than 50,000 shade trees, creating natural buffers around streams and water springs, preserving the river valleys as forest, planting along the contour, implementing integrated pest management systems and many other steps, Aquiares has demonstrated how to make ecological ideals a reality. For example, given that soil health is the most important factor for a successful farm, Aquiares takes many steps to naturally improve the farm’s volcanic soil. The organic matter from pruning and the leaf litter from the coffee and shade trees are left to feed soil microbes and provide organic nutrients. The diversified shade trees (over 40 species) also cool the ground, slowing the ripening of the coffee, which allows for sugars from the mucilage to be fully absorbed by the bean, thus improving cup quality. The farm’s agricultural objective is to find synergies like these, where environmental health translates into coffee plant health, which ultimately contributes to a long-term stability in the production of high-quality coffee. 

The farm’s terrain varies from gently sloping to steep hills. Valleys between hills create microclimates that are ideal for growing mainly Caturra and grafted Arabica-Nemaya varieties. Although Aquiares is considered large under Central American standards, the farm’s belief is that it is crucial to tend to every individual coffee plant’s needs. Therefore, Aquiares utilises a system of pruning each plant independently, instead of pruning by row or lot. Through an intensive rehabilitation program, Aquiares has re-planted more than 400,000 coffee trees in small patches of existing fields. This rejuvenated the crop of trees and increased the land’s utilisation. It also played a crucial role in the 2012 rust attack, as young plants resisted the disease better, slowing its spread.

Aquiares has been home to research studies for decades, starting with sociological studies in the1950s. More recently, numerous scientific studies have been conducted at Aquiares. In 2007, the farm was among the very first to try to calculate its carbon balance. Today, Aquiares is the main test plot for an ongoing project between the CIRAD Institute of France and CATIE University of Costa Rica. The Carbon-Flux Project measures greenhouse gas exchange between the farm plot and the atmosphere over long term time scales. This research station is the only one of its kind in the world, capable of accurately measuring the emission-sequestration balance of a hectare of shaded coffee. With this tool, the researchers are trying to develop a model that can be used by any coffee farmer in the world to estimate the carbon sequestration potential of their farm. This project is part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change research efforts.

Aquiares | Costa Rica Coffee

Aquiares Estate 🇨🇷 Costa Rica (@aquiarescoffee) • Instagram photos and videos

5th Wave Podcast with Diego Robelo

https://share.transistor.fm/s/adb40862

YouTube - Meet the Farmer

https://youtu.be/xQ9j-CaVtWc?si=azjRuIco83rrIR1h

About F1 Hybrids - World Coffee Research | F1 Hybrid Trials

A note about packaging

Our coffee comes packaged in beautiful and hard wearing tins. It is important to keep those beans away from air and light (see our blog post about coffee storage) and we think tins are the very best way of keeping those guys fresh. 

Tins can of course be easily recycled (with other metals) but the very best and most environmentally conscious thing to do with them is to refill them. Find out how to refill or dispose of your Steampunk packaging HERE.