Attention, fans of Costa Rican coffee!

Colectivo's Coffee Quality Manager, Nathan Hoida, and Head Trainer, Scott Lucey, are headed down to Costa Rica next week to visit old friends, make some new ones, and cup a plethora of samples.

Stay tuned throughout the week on Facebook and Instagram to keep tabs on their progress as they visit Coopedota, a coffee cooperative in Santa Maria de Dota, and surrounding farms and cupping labs to make final decisions on this year’s Featured Farm Dota Day Lots and Rio Jorco micro-lots.

We’ve been buying coffee from Costa Rica's Coopedota since 2005 and were one of the very first roasters to purchase coffee from the micromill the co-op installed in 2006. Coopedota is a huge cooperative with over 750 members, and the micromill allows them to isolate small lots from the best farmers in the co-op and offer them to roasters who are looking for the highest quality coffees possible.  They produce two micro-lots per day from the micromill during the peak of the harvest (approximately 40 days).

During their stay in Costa Rica, Nathan and Scott will cup around 80 samples, and select approximately 15 favorites.  The top-scoring coffees will end up as Colectivo Featured Farm offerings - including Dota Day Lots - and the remainder will be blended together to become our everyday Costa Rica Campeon.

Thats right! Our everyday Costa Rican coffee is actually a highly-selected blend of coffees from the top 1% of all of the coffee at Coopedota!

Nathan and Scott will join representatives of Cafe Imports, spending a lot of time in their San Jose lab, cupping samples, visiting the farms and meeting the people behind each sample. Watch this video from Cafe Imports to learn more about their relationship with Rio Jorco!

Speaking of Rio Jorco, we’ve only been buying their coffee for a couple years and are extremely excited to visit the farm for the very first time.  From experimenting with fermentation processes to drying techniques to botanical varieties, we look forward to exploring some new ideas and opportunities with this very progressive farm.Coffees like our Dota Day Lots are shining examples of the exciting projects and sourcing that result from relationships with our partners in Costa Rica. We feel extremely lucky to have first pick of some of the best coffees coming from that region! 

On the final leg of their trip, Scott and Nathan will attend the very first “Cafe Imports Costa Cup 2014," a soccer tournament of coffee producers co-sponsored by Cafe Imports and Colectivo.  Four teams made up of the area’s main coffee producers will be pitted against one another in a bracketed-style tournament.  The tournament celebrates this year's harvest and all the hard work leading up to it...winner gets bragging rights until 2015!

Keep in touch via Instagram and Facebook (@colectivocoffee) for photos and details of this journey as it unfolds over the next week. Thanks!