Costa Rica - La Isla SL28 Honey

2023 harvest has arrived!

Varietal –  SL28
Preparation – White Honey
Location – Naranjo, West Valley
Altitude – 1550 masl
Importer - Horsham Coffee Roaster

This is a fantastic yellow honey processed coffee from La Isla farm in the West Valley, Costa Rica. They won 10th place at the 2020 and 2021 Cup of Excellence competitions with the submission of one of the SL28 honey-processed coffee.

We are super excited to be sourcing our Costa Rican coffees directly. We source our Costa Rican coffees in partnership with Selva Coffee, a small exporter representing a select group of coffee producers that we visited in February 2020 and December 2022.

These producers are located in the West Valley, Central Valley, and Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. You can read more about our direct trade coffees in our Transparency Report. The video below was filmed in February 2020.

Farm Overview

La Isla is owned by Luis Padilla who bought the farm in 2017. He was inspired by his grandfather who owned a coffee farm for many years in the Naranjo region. The farm covers 10.5 hectares and is located at 1500 masl growing a mix of Villa Sarchi, Geisha and SL-28. These are kept separate during the harvest. Luis is focusing on the regeneration of the farm and in the video, you can clearly identify the section of the farm with healthy trees. They are working their way through the farm with a view to regenerating the entire 10.5 hectares. 

La Isla has won the 10th place prize at the yearly Cup of Excellence competition for two years running. Both times they enter the SL28 varietal processed as a white honey and in both cases, the coffees scored over 88 points which is a fantastic result!

While this particular coffee isn't the cup of excellence lot it was processed using the same method with the same care and attention to detail during the harvesting and sorting process and we confidently give this coffee a score of 88 points! To read more about this coffee at cup of excellence head over to the La Isla Cup of Excellence 2021 page. 

Harvesting and Processing:

This coffee has been harvested from SL28 trees. All harvesting is done by hand, keeping the different varietals separate. After harvest, the coffee is pulped using a new Penagos DCV-4000 eco-pulper. This is an eco machine that removes the fruit using very little water, reducing any negative impact on the environment. The Penagos pulper also separates and sorts any underripe coffee helping to add an extra layer of sorting to the process

The definition of honey-processed coffee can vary from farm to farm. La Isla yellow honey is produced by removing most of the fruit, leaving just a small amount of mucilage on the coffee for the drying stage. This is completed on a concrete patio with the coffee laid out in beautiful patterns and moved regularly to ensure even drying. The drying stage takes about 10 days.

Tasting Notes:

This is lovely clean, bright, crisp and juicy honey-processed coffee with a cup score of 88+ points. It showcases wonderful sweetness with crisp blackcurrant, tangerine, rhubarb and caramel sweetness. A truly stunning coffee that tastes very similar to some of the best coffees from Kenya.