Costa Rica Black Honey

The process begins with collecting 100% mature coffee cherries at their optimal ripeness for specialty coffee. Once the cherries arrive at our wet mill in Patalillo, they are soaked in water and moved via centrifugal pumps through a canal to remove impurities such as stones, floated beans, wood, and leaves—ensuring only ripe cherries remain. The cherries are then drained and sent to horizontal pulpers rotating at 130 RPM, where the skin is removed. The beans are then sorted by size to separate high-quality lots.

For the Black Honey process, 75% of the mucilage is intentionally retained on the beans. The coffee is then transferred to African drying beds at a thickness of no more than 4 inches. Beans are manually turned every 30 minutes to promote even drying, reducing internal moisture to 10.5%. This stage typically lasts 8–10 days. Finally, the coffee rests for at least one month in Grain Pro bags before being dry milled to remove the parchment and prepare the beans for export.