La Candelaria estate is large for Costa Rica standards, and puts ample resources into environmental stewardship. The estate is located in the vicinity of Palmares, in the Alajuela province. Alajuela is part of Costa Rica’s well-known West Valley, one of the country’s most historic coffee regions. La Candelaria is 150 hectares of blended coffee production and natural forest preserve. Hans Aeberhard, the owner and manager since 1980, runs both a native wildlife protection program and a reforestation program on the estate, in addition to maintaining Rain Forest Alliance certification. In the greater community La Candelaria seeks to make an impact as well, by providing economic aid to the nearby rural school, which is used for nutrition and learning supplies. When it comes to coffee, Hans processes and mills on property where he can oversee a variety of techniques. (This is Costa Rica, after all, where it is not uncommon to see even small family plots exercising extreme levels of mastery over various degrees of honey and natural profiles made at home.) Microlots like this one begin as designated pickings: Hans and his team will target certain cultivars and picking days for microlot preparation, customizing processing to best suit the potential in the field. This natural lot is 100% caturra variety picked on a single day in January, the last month of harvest at La Candelaria. Cherry for this lot was carefully sorted and screen-dried for 21 days on raised beds inside the estate’s greenhouse in order to keep the drying rate slow and steady. The result is an increased, clean fruit balance on an otherwise bright and sweet cup.
