COSTA RICA AQUIARES ESTATE EUCALYPTUS CO-FERMENT WASHED

The name Aquiares means “land between rivers” in the Huetar indigenous language,
and Aquiares Estate is commonly referred to as “Aquiares Coffee and Community.” It
is the largest farm in Costa Rica and home to 1,800 people. Although the farm was
founded in 1890, Alfonso Robelo is the man responsible for its transformation a
century later. Alfonso arrived in Costa Rica in the 1980’s seeking refuge from the civil
war in Nicaragua, where he was politically active. When politics soured into violence,
he fled the country to keep his family and himself safe after receiving several threats
against his life. Once in Costa Rica, Alfonso began building the Aquiares community
on the enchanting slopes of the Turrialba volcano, a lush area of forests, rivers, fauna,
and bright flora.

Alfredo challenged the status quo, transforming the relationship between
landowner and farm workers. He brought a visionary approach to Aquiares, a farm
suffering from low prices and instability. Aquiares had more than 200 employee
homes on the farm, but because none owned their home, there was great insecurity
in the workforce. Alfonso saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the company by
having people feel pride in the coffee they produce. He evolved the farm into a small
town where workers purchased their own homes. Today, Aquiares remains a model
of sustainable agriculture.

Nowadays Alfonso’s son, Diego, manages the farm. Under his lead, the farm has
taken a fresh approach to specialty coffee and exploring the farm’s potential.
Through excellent agricultural management, embracing new varieties, and
experimenting with processing, Aquiares has become a trailblazer among specialty
coffee producers in Costa Rica and all of Central America.
Aquiares focuses on carbon neutrality and measures its greenhouse gas emissions
to calculate its carbon emissions against its offsets. An agent verified under the
International Panel on Climate Change norms verifies these calculations and
Aquiares’ carbon measurement and emissions reduction are part of Costa Rica’s
Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action. In addition to capturing carbon, the farm’s
protected biological corridors have long ensured the wellbeing of local animals and
plants. Aquiares also welcomes researchers from around the world to conduct
agricultural and environmental studies on their land. Projects have included
investigating the benefits of agroforestry on soil health and observing the diverse
bird and wildlife species that thrive in an agroecological environment.
Aquiares is an example of innovation and perseverance whose benefits extend
beyond the farm and workers and serve as a model for sustainable, equitable
production for the broader coffee industry. The lots selected by Ally Coffee from
Aquiares represent our shared commitment to sustainability, equity, and innovation.

Centroamericano is an F1 hybrid variety generated by crossing the Sarchimor T-5296
and a wild Rume Sudan variety. It is reproduced through a tissue culture cloning
process called somatic embryogenesis. This cultivar has been distributed among
coffee producers in Central America over the last decade and the first productive
harvests are now available. Turrialba’s climate is well suited to growing this new
variety, and Aquaires is up to the challenge of meeting its complex nutritional needs.

This hybrid represents the best of the farm and cupping worlds because it is high-
yielding and rust-resistant, and also has a complex, elegant profile.

We have identified the need to diversify our production to rely less on solely coffee.
One very exciting new project is that of producing medicinal herbs that contain
essential oils that have health, beauty and wellness applications. We started this
project in 2021 with the commitment of it being the first all-women led project
within our organization. We have now planted 2 hectares of herbs like Oregano,
Eucalyptus and Juanilama. Our main clients buy essential oils for the natural
pharmaceutical industry; but as we extract the oils, there is a residual liquid which
is water-based, called Hydrosol.
Hydrsol maintains the organoleptic properties of the plant, and having this
amazing resource, we decided to experiment and try to translate these flavor attributes to coffee. So, we turn hydrosol into a coffee-fermentation inoculate.

Fully ripe cherries are brought to the mill, where floaters are separated. The
heavy fruit is depulped and placed within fermentation tanks, where
hydrolate from our essential oils extraction plant is incorporated and then the
tank is sealed. We check temperature and pH twice a day, and once it reaches
pH of 4.0 (after 1-2 days), the coffee is removed from the tanks, drained,
washed, and sent to our solar dryers for a slow, 16-day drying process. All lots
are then stored in GrainPro for three months for aromas to consolidate. - Aquaires Estate

This lot is the first co-ferment we have worked with from Costa Rica and also our first co-ferment that isn't a fruit. The use of the hydrosol left from their processing of eucalyptus is a unique and efficient way of incorporating more of the farm into the coffee fermentation. In the cup, we taste eucalyptus with lemon balm and a rich and creamy vanilla bean sweetness.