Erika Mora & Ruben Dario

Beyond the amazing flavors this coffee is a true family affair and we are in love. Ruben has been growing coffee for 35 years, ever since he was a kid on his dad's farm. Today he owns a portion of his family farm and dedicates his time to growing and cultivating some amazing coffee. His wife Erika and their three daughters, Tati, Mari Cruz and Raquel are in charge of processing the coffee and collectively they exhibit a craft and passion that carry's through to the cup.

We are so excited to bring this coffee to you and can't wait to hear your thoughts!

From the importer Selva Specialty Coffee: 

Farmer Story

Ruben is renewing the plants that get old or sick year after year. Rubén has received training that has allowed him to develop good pest control, good shade management and pruning. In addition, every year he performs a soil survey to ensure that the fertilizer provided during the year is correct with the dose and the elements or nutrients necessary for the plant to have good growth, flowering and ripening of the fruit.

What we really like about Ruben’s coffee project is that his family is fully involved, his 3 daughters Maricruz, Raquel, and Tatiana  are in charge of the drying stage and his wife Erika is also helping as much as she can since she has a problem in her leg. Ruben’s daughters are really passionate about coffee and love to help their parents with the coffee activity. They are in High School and are really hard working girls. 

Process

Erica and her three daughters: Tati, Mari Cruz and Raquel are in charge of processing the coffee, they have a very simple equipment at their house that depulps the cherries, they don’t have a demucilager and therefore leave all the mucilage in the parchment to dry. The coffee gets very sticky as it dries and this makes the process more intense. 

This year, the family invested in their pulping area and everything was in place - ready to go for this harvest’s fruit. When they went to go process their first honey of the harvest - the system wasn’t working correctly. In a panic they asked us what to do and we assured them that there is a strong market for naturals as we had been telling them leading up to the harvest. So, they put the fruit out to dry on their raised beds in little mounds overnight. The next day we went to visit as they are very close to where we live. They were moving the coffee frequently and picking out any imperfections. It was a tough year to sun dry coffees as it rained a bit, but they were able to keep the coffee covered during any wet spurts and keep it moving so that there was a consistent drying over a 22-30 day period. 

Dry Milling

The family elects to use the nearby dry in San Lorenzo, also in Tarrazu. Here, the small association peels the parchment off the seed, grades by size and density, and finally gets electronically color sorted. We ensure that the export preparation is met to European Prep Standards and the coffee is put into new GrainPro and Jute bags to be loaded onto a container.