Costa Rica Las Lajas – Alma Negra | natural honey

The Las Lajas Alma Negra process is a unique, slow, controlled natural coffee method developed by Oscar and Francisca Chacón in Costa Rica, involving extended drying in a greenhouse and on patios, piling cherries at night, and resting them for 60+ days, resulting in intensely sweet, complex, dark fruit, and floral notes by preserving mucilage and slowing fermentation for concentrated flavor.

Costa Rica is a small country but the diversity of climates found there and their impact on coffee production has led to a coffee industry that punches above its weight. The first coffee was grown in the Central Valley a lush, fertile region influenced by Atlantic weather patterns and this is where Las Lajas coffee, which we have been buying since 2017, is grown by the Chacon family. Six farms owned by six brothers and together comprising 73ha and a mill are located in the town of Sabanilla de Alajuela, on the slopes of the Pos volcano. The mill stands at 1,300 masl and the farms above at 1,450-1,500 masl. The mill, which produces about 2,000 exportable bags per year, is owned and run by Oscar Chacon and his wife Francisca, with help from their four children the eldest of whom took the secon…