HOT ! Mirra - Johel & Mathias Monge - Bourbon - Honey - Costa Rica 250g

Roasted 2/25

White Cherry, Honeysuckle, Orange

This blissful honey bourbon lot produced by Johel and Mathias Monge of Hacienda San Isidro Labrador represents the last, but certainly not the least of our Costa Rican releases this season. As we have come to expect from HSIL coffees, this one presents the very best that Costa Rican terroir has to offer, and the heights of flavor that the bourbon bourbon variety can attain, when tended to as meticulously and lovingly as it has been in the case of this lot. This is a super delicate, transparent cup, offering up white spring cherries, subtle honeysuckle florality, and a baseline of orange brightness throughout. This one truly blew the team away, and we couldn’t be more enthusiastic to begin the good work with Hacienda San Isidro Labrador.

Over 100 years ago Johel’s father—Mathias’ grandfather—moved from the suburbs of San Jose to Tarrazu with the intention of making the most of the rapidly developing coffee industry in the region at the time. He began by just picking coffee, but was eventually able to afford to purchase his own farm. This farm was handed down, then, to Johel who decided to sell it in favor of buying new land in the less-developed and higher-altitude Dota area of Tarrazu. This land, purchased in the 1980’s, became what we know today as Hacienda San Isidro Labrador, located just a click north of the village of Santa Maria de Dota. Initially, Johel planted just catuai and costa rica 95, but with the explosion of Panamanian geisha in the early 2010s, decided to focus primarily on geisha cultivation himself. In 2012, Johel and his son Mathias planted thousands of geisha and typica trees, as well as a select few plots of bourbon trees, which contributed to this lot. Today, HSIL is a multi-Cup of Excellence-winning estate known widely for its attention to quality and profile clarity.

Bourbon is one of the most ubiquitous and well-known varieties of C. arabica, particularly in South America. It is characterized by its high quality potential at altitude, plant height, lower production yield, and susceptibility to major coffee diseases. Bourbon was first introduced to Bourbon Island—now La Réunion—from Yemen by French missionaries in the early 18th century. It wasn’t until the mid 19th century that Bourbon proliferated beyond Bourbon Island, when it was brought by missionaries to Africa and the Americas. Bourbon was first planted in Brazil in the 1860’s, after which it spread rapidly north and west into other regions of South and Central America, where it remains common and popular today.

All coffee is sold whole-bean to reduce oxidation, and increase the longevity of volatile organic compounds.