Costa Rica El Indio

In my last coffee shipment I ordered a single bag of "El Indio" from Costa Rica.  It's the first time we've ever had this coffee, and so far I've only roasted it once.

It is a coffee that is sourced by Hacienda La Minita.  The coffee comes from the Tarrazu region, just like La Minita, but instead of being produced and milled on their farm, it is grown by a variety of farmers in the region and milled at the Beneficio Tarrazu in San Marcos. 

The first time I went to Costa Rica I took my bike and rode from La Minita around to different areas, and one of those days I rode to San Marcos.  It is a beautiful town with two mills, lots of uniformed school children playing soccer, pretty little houses, and of course an old church.  

I have cupped El Indio a few times with Sergio (the head cupper at La Minita) and it has always been good, but I've preferred La Magnolia (also sourced by La Minita, but from Tres Rios region).  I have purchased it now, instead of La Magnolia, for variety and exploration.  I never really know what a coffee will taste like when I roast it in the Vittoria.

It is good.  It's another classic Central American washed coffee.  In our efforts to seek out the best naturals in the world, we've sort of neglected the washed coffees and I began to feel that we were leaving out a significant portion of great coffees.  The first time I roasted the El Indio, I probably didn't take it as far into the roast as I will next time.  It's pretty light, clean, nutty, chocolatey, with a hint of wineyness.  It has a fine acidity and a clean finish.  Taking the coffee a little further into the roast will polish some of the front-end nuttiness and bring out a little more of the chocolate and fruit that I'm looking for.  

This coffee is so clean because the defects have been sorted out by hand.  For many years this coffee was only exported to Europe because the extra processing demanded a higher price and in America we're all about cutting costs and widening our margins.

Basically if you like Costa Rican coffees, you'll like the El Indio.  It's an alternative to the flagship La Minita we always roast.  But I only bought one bag, so you should try it when you see it.  I probably have 8 more roasts of it before it's gone.

Here are the cupping notes (not this year's crop) from Tom at Sweet Maria's on the El Indio:

Notes: El Indio is the mark of CoopTarrazu located in San Marcos de Tarrazu. This is the geographical and cultural center of the Tarrazu coffee area, which coincidentally describes the cup character of the El Indio perfectly - classic Tarrazu cup profile! Why do we carry so many coffees from Tarrazu? Good question, and I am kicking myself right now because it is SO much work to offer you all so many choices. But the fact is, I can't help myself when I get a great sample, and Tarrazu coffees are the preeminent Costa Rican coffees. Now, there is a lot of bad coffee that comes from Tarrazu, and there are fine coffees from elsewhere (specifically, Tres Rios region). But Tarrazu has the climate, the altitude, the "cafecultura" (coffee culture; the people, the expertise, the history). El Indio is a profoundly balanced cup, with a slightly winey character that typifies Tarrazu from the central Tarrazu Valley area. The brightness has a ripe, mature lemon quality, not what I would normally call a citrus acidity (such as some Kenyas). (Have you ever had a lemon that ripens on the tree to the point it becomes quite sweet?) It has moderate milk chocolate and hazelnut in the cup, offset with a modicum of sweetness that intensifies in the finish - what a great finish this cup has! The body is medium, and has a silky mouthfeel. The aftertaste is chocolate-caramel, clean and mild. It is a very balanced and very refined cup (+1 cuppers correction for this intangible quality), which (having a decent amount of cupping experience at international competitions) leads me to wonder ... why aren't my Japanese counterparts buying all of this? Kentaro? Shinji? Yoshi? Hiroshi? Are you reading this???

On another note, below is a link to a story that I think was written by Tim Castle in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal in 1992 about Bill McAlpin and Hacienda La Minita.  It mentions some of the coffees we've roasted from La Minita and it addresses issues that are still very pertinent today in the coffee industry.  In fact, the things Bill was talking about in 1992 are just now happening on any type of noticeable scale in the industry- the man is way ahead of his time.  While reading this I also thought about how this relates to our economy.  You can read how coffee farmers survived when the "value" of their product decreased.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/print/13218548.html

For more information about La Minita, google search "La Minita."  Or go to their website.