Sumava White Honey Villasarchi

Sumava de Lourdes is a Cup of Excellence winning farm based in the West Valley of Costa Rica. It's owned by Francisco Meña who has been an integral figure in the success of Costa Rica's specialty coffee production. He is the owner of Exclusive Coffees, an exporting group in Costa Rica.

Since 2015, we've visited Sumava and been able to see it's growth and development first hand. In 2015, they had a small depulper where they were doing their honey coffees, now they have a sophisticated wet mill, with a capacity to handle both farms within the umbrella of Sumava de Lourdes, 'Llano Bonito' and 'Monte Lourdes'.

Llano Bonito is an eastern slope focused on the production of Villasarchi.

Monte Lourdes is a western and southern slope where you'll find the the micro mill, Sumava de Lourdes, the nursery filled with fascinating coffee genetics as well as some production of more exotic varieties.

In 2016, Sumava won the Costa Rica Cup of Excellence, an incredibly prestigious award. The coffee they submitted to the competition was an incredibly rare coffee cultivar called Ethiopia H3.

A honey processed coffee is pulped, meaning the cherry is spliced open and the mucilage inside is exposed. Rather than cleaning it all off the seeds using water to rinse, the coffee is brought to dry covered in this mucilage. This will lead to increased sweetness with jammy or honey-like body.

For this White honey process, approximately twenty percent of the mucilage is left on with the coffee seeds to dry. No intentional fermentation stage occurs.