Airship Coffee

Costa Rica - Gustavo Monge - Catuai Natural

Tasting notes: Strawberry, vanilla creme. We found this coffee through our friends at selva coffee and it's one of our favorites! Gustavo and his family have been producing coffee for 60-70 years. His grandparents started the tradition and his parents followed. However, they used to work in a more conventional manner and simply delivered their fruit to cooperatives or multinationals. Eight years ago gustavo decided to opt for a change to the micro-beneficio model and a different way of working. He believes that it lends to a special way of exporting coffee more transparently and in 2014 the dream could finally be formed and the project started. The trapiche lot has been re-planted by gustavo and his father with the catuai-caturra variety about 15 years ago. They also planted various trees that work perfectly as shade like bananas, oranges, lemons, and avocados. They wisely dug out terraces on the mountainside to create a secure environment and avoid soil erosion. It is this type of foresight and care that we believe makes a great producer. This natural catuai was one of our favorites on the cupping table. This is the first of our costa rica rollout!

Costa Rica - Diego Abarca - Typica Honey

Tasting notes: Sugar cane, apricot, milk chocolate. Diego Abarca has been raised among coffee producers and has found his calling by spearheading many of the business decisions made by the farm in recent years. Until 10 or 15 years ago, nearly every farmer in Costa Rica delivered their cherries to cooperatives or multinationals to be processed. That is how Diego's family and neighbors did it until a few years ago. A huge benefit to processing your own coffee is that you' re better able to maintain the quality standards and because of that, your coffee sells at higher prices. As their farm grew, so did the family's understanding of what they were missing by not processing their own coffee. A little over 5 years ago, Diego started his family's micromill, Alto San Juan. Today, Diego and his family has succeeded in producing a higher quality coffee, getting a better price for their product, and growing the volume they process. His vision is to work with quality focused roasters (like Airship!) in providing them with increasingly better coffee year after year. This particular variety, Typica, is unique in that it's not as commonly grown as it was years ago. The yield per tree is low, the risk to major disease is high, but the cup quality is incredible. The risk these producers took in planting Typica versus the many other varieties available is just another reason to add this to your bucket list of coffees. Diego's dedication to quality is evident and we' re looking forward to seeing more from him and his family