Aquiares Estate Entre Rios 250g

Aquiares Estate Entre Rios 250g

Aquiares Estate Entre Rios 250g

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We’ve been buying coffee from Aquiares Estate for a number of years and it’s a farm which consistently produces high quality coffee with strong environmental credentials.

This is a lovely, easy drinking coffee with flavours of chocolate, brazil nut and dried fruit.

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Aquiares Estate Entre Rios

Our seasonal coffees each come with their own story, which is part of what makes them so special. Here we take a closer look at Aquiares Estate in Costa Rica.

The Farm

Aquiares, one of Costa Rica’s largest and most historic coffee farms, sits high on the fertile slopes of Turrialba Volcano. Producing coffee continuously for over a century, the farm has developed an enduring model for growing high-quality Arabica coffee, protecting a stunning natural setting, and supporting a thriving local community of 1,800 people. 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. Today, the Estate is the largest continuous coffee farm in Costa Rica, covering 924 hectares, 80% of which is planted under shade-grown Arabica. 

The Facts!

Varietals: Marsellesa & Obatá 
Processing: Natural
Altitude: 1,100 to 1,400m

Harvesting & Processing

All Aquiares coffee is picked by hand to ensure consistent high quality. Microlots, such as this one, are 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. Each tree is visited up to seven times during the harvest to ensure that only fully red ripe cherries are picked. The skilled hands of the pickers represent the farm’s most valuable asset. 

As coffee cherries come from the field the same day that they are picked, they move into Aquiares’ wet mill. The farm produces fully washed coffees, honey processed coffees and naturals. This natural lot has been floated for density (with all floaters being removed) and then immediately moved to the farm's solar dryer patios (large greenhouse with ceramic floors) for pre-drying. After 2-3 days of pre-drying on the ceramic floors, they are moved to the farm’s raised beds, also in the covered greenhouse, where they slowly dry for around 10 days. Finally, the beans are placed in A mechanical drying in Guardiola for 1 day to complete the process.

Social and Environmental Responsibility

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. 

Its stringent environmental stewardship enabled the farm to achieve Rainforest Alliance Certification in 2003. In 2012, Aquiares became the first farm in Costa Rica to fulfil the requirements of the Rainforest Alliance Climate Module. This requires adhering to careful standards of greenhouse gas emissions and energy use, which are carefully tracked through each harvest season. This certification demonstrates that the farm’s low emissions do not meaningfully contribute to climate change. Not only that, but the farm is 100% carbon neutral, and actually carbon negative. The trees that have been planted and the reduced usage of chemical fertilizers has helped sequester carbon into the soil, more carbon than the farm actually produces. 

sourcing coffee

Our Coffee Broker

For over ten years we have worked closely with Mercanta. They pay a fair price for coffee, empowering the growers they work with. Such is our faith in their commitment to supporting farmers that we now purchase 100% of our coffee through Mercanta.
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