Costa Rica

Herbazu

We first visited the Herbazu mill in March 2015, during the same trip where we filmed our ‘Brightness’ movie. The name Herbazu comes from the family name of the brother who own the farm, Los Hermanos Barrantes zuñiga. During our first trip we were very impressed by the brothers’ dedication, and incredibly high levels of quality control and sorting. However, what also intrigued us was their experimentation with alternative varietals. We tasted a small lot of SL28 that had been produced at the farm, that to us, was the cleanest representation of the varietal that we had ever tasted grown outside Kenya. We have often found that SL28 lots don’t deliver on their promise of clean Kenya-like acidity and syrupy sweetness, but this ticked all of those boxes. That lot went on to win the 2015 Costa Rica Cup of Excellence, and ever since we have been waiting to bring some Herbazu SL28 back to Denmark. This year, during our visit in March, we managed to secure a lot of White Honey processed SL28, and it’s delivering everything we hoped. A clean and juicy blackcurrant acidity is backed up by a rich brown sugar sweetness, like we’d expect from an SL28, but the finish is all classic West Valley, with waves of almond and hazelnut. A great example of a coming together of knowledgable farming, an iconic variety, and a region with ideal coffee producing conditions.