La Rosa Costa Rica
Price £6.50 ( 350g )This small, family run farm has produced a delightful crop this year. The cup’s low acidity reinforces the cane sugar sweetness and allows notes of malt, toasted hazelnut and vanilla to combine in a way that evokes nutella.
This coffee stood out the moment we smelled the dry grounds and at our first public cupping someone called the aroma as Nutella and it has stuck! Costa Rica seems to be changing as a producer. On the one hand the price of land means many farmers are selling their land to developers, and increased labour costs are making coffee farming more difficult, yet on the other hand there are more and more small farms and mills producing interesting, appealing lots of coffee. La Rosa is run by 73 year old Don Fernando Vindas, who bought the farm 12 years ago, an agronomy engineer by trade.