By Michael Barker
This week, we’re launching a set of two freshly landed coffees from Costa Rica. Both are the same variety, Villa Sarchi, a distinctly Costa Rican cultivar with a unique history. However, as a result of their processing, both have very different flavour profiles.
What is a ‘cultivar’?
Firstly, let’s address the elephant in the room - ‘cultivar’. You’ll probably have heard us refer to coffee varieties before (Gesha, Pink Bourbon, Castillo), but you might not have heard the term ‘cultivar’. Cultivar is formed from “Cultivated Variety”. This means that it is a variety that has been carefully grown and refined by human beings. First discovered in Costa Rica in the 1950s, Villa Sarchi has since undergone careful pedigree selection to improve quality and consistency.
Why cultivate varieties?
Cultivating varieties can allow them to become more robust, and more resistant to the increasingly tempestuous conditions of our climate. Villa Sarchi is particularly well adapted to high-altitude environments and strong winds, and is rather susceptible to certain diseases. In the late 1960s it was cross bred with Timor Hybrid (a Timor-Leste variety which we featured earlier this year sourced through Karst Organics) to bolster its disease resistance. This led to the creation of many popular Central American varieties such as Parainema and Marsellesa.
What’s the difference between these two lots?
This set features two Villa Sarchi lots grown just a few hours apart. In many ways, you would expect them to taste very similar. However, due to their processing, both lots showcase the cultivar through two very different expressions, leading to two very different cups.
The flavour profile of a Villa Sarchi typically leads with a distinct floral honey sweetness, bright acidity and full-bodied texture. Due to El Refugio being a natural, and La Luisa being washed, they both have slightly different expressions of this flavour.
La Luisa gives us a more clean and refined approach, with high sweetness and subtle florality. It has notes of yellow stone fruit and milk chocolate with an almond buttery, pastry-like quality in the finish
El Refugio, on the other hand, showcases the deep and complex fruity side that Villa Sarchi rarely presents. It has notes of wild strawberry, plum and black grape, with a subtle cascara tea finish.
Our Costa Rica Set
We chose to feature both of these coffees in our current line up for a number of reasons.
Firstly, this is our first time roasting Villa Sarchi. A quintessentially Costa Rican variety, we were excited to source a Villa Sarchi coffee and bring something new to our lineup.
Additionally, both of these coffees are standout lots notwithstanding their variety, and both of them stood out to us on our increasingly competitive cupping table. Through careful processing, both coffees allow the cultivar to shine in different ways, showcasing the complexity of flavour available from the Villa Sarchi cultivar.
Finally, these two lots provide a powerful insight into how the coffee industry is working to adapt to climate change. Rising temperatures and unpredictable weather is becoming a major problem for the industry, and cultivated varieties are proving essential to withstanding unstable conditions.
If you'd like to try these two coffees, you can pick up a set in our cafe or online now. (we also sell them separately if one in particular is catching your eye!)