Christmas Coffee | Costa Rica | Finca La Guaria

Christmas is a time of family and tradition and these two themes don't come much more entwined than in the story of Finca La Guaria and Apolonio Navarro Valverde.

This coffee is a tribute to the life work of 95-year-old Apolonio and a family tradition in coffee stretching back many generations.  The Navarro Ceciliano family has been farming and working in coffee for 100 years and its latest generation, Apolonio's 3 sons and 3 daughters, are all part of the operation known as Coffee Nace.

Coffee Nace is run by Eduardo Navarro and it includes several family owned farms including Finca La Guaria, as well as a micromill for processing these farms' produce.  The word "Nace" comes from the first letters of each of the family names "Navarro" and "Ceciliano".

The cherries are hand-picked and, on arrival at the micromill, they are floated to sort immature cherries.  They are then placed on patios to dry with regular raking and  finally moved to drum dryers to reach the desired level of moisture.

Merry Christmas folks!