Costa Rica
Nelsyn Hernandez and Santuario Project
Tres Milagros
Bourbon
Red Honey
January - March
Honey, Complex Acidity, Bright, Green Apple, Toffee, Citrus
1525 meters
N/A
69kg with liner
SOLD OUT
The Tres Milagros farm is a 105-hectare estate built from two plots; Tobosí and Higuito, which are 43 and 62 hectares respectively. Not all land is planted with coffee; an estimated 30 percent is forest area. Despite being only a couple hundred meters from each other, the two plots are quite different in topography. The Tobosí lot is almost completely flat and enjoys much shade from Poro trees which introduce nitrogen back into the soil. Australian pines provide further shade protection and serve as windbreakers. In contrast, the Higuito has many more hills and a greater exposure to the sun.
Every detail is thought of at Tres Milagros and every decision is taken consciously to obtain the best results in terms of farm productivity and quality. Nine years ago, however, this was a completely different story. The farm has been owned by an entrepreneurial Honduran family for over forty years, but with time had fallen to mismanagement. In 2010, Nelsyn Hernandez moved from Honduras to Costa Rica to revive the farm and make it to what it is today.
Nelsyn, an agronomic engineer, encountered many problems at the farm. The coffee varieties had not been renovated for years, there were instances of theft on the farm, and productivity was very low. Through an integrated approach of hiring more qualified employees, replanting trees, changing the agricultural management, and implementing strategic fertilizing techniques, Nelsyn has been able to increase productivity to the viable levels the farm experiences today.
In 2013, Nelsyn met Camilo Merizalde, which opened up the next chapter of operations on Tres Milagros. Camilo is a native Colombian who runs successful coffee farms in his home country. In the search of better coffee and opening up new opportunities, Camilo travelled to various coffee origins and fell in love with Tres Milagros. Now that the agricultural processes were in better shape, Nelsyn set his sights improved processing; Camilo was the perfect mentor to guide him.
For the 2018-2019 harvest, most of Tres Milagros’ coffees were processed using the Red Honey technique, the method used for this microlot. For Red Honey processing, the coffee cherries are harvested with a sugar content of 22-25 degrees Brix and then immediately washed with clean water. Cherries are soaked for six hours before being depulped with minimal water to leave as much as mucilage as possible. Next, the coffee in parchment is moved to raised beds in a greenhouse and turned every two hours for even. Each section of raised beds has fans blowing air directly onto the coffee to maintain a steady airflow. The total process takes 18-20 days, after which the coffee has an approximate humidity of 11%. A new wet mill is under construction for the 2019-2020 harvest.
Nelsyn and the Santuario Project are excellent examples of producers working to move coffee forward through collaboration and to open up new opportunities in the industry.
Tres Rios coffee region is named for the city of Tres Rios, located not far from the Costa Rican capital city of San Jose. The region dates back to 1820, during the expansion of the country’s coffee growing area beyond the Central Valley into other provinces. Coffee production grew strongly from 1840 into the later half of the nineteenth century.
The land of Tres Rios is influenced by the Pacific slope and the Irazu Volcano, which results in the soil and climate conditions producing a unique cup profile. Tres Rios enjoys well-defined dry and rainy seasons. These factors contribute to the production of dense, strictly hard bean coffee.
As a coffee growing zone, Tres Rios is small and very homogenous in its climate and soils, which have a level of tropical acidity due to the presence of volcanic ash, are rich in organic material, and have a good texture. The soil conditions of Tres Rios facilitate ample root growth of coffee trees, an adequate moisture retention, and proper oxygenation. These characteristics yield hearty coffee plants.
The average temperature in Tres Rios is 21º C, with 80% relative humidity. The region sees 2250mm of rainfall annually and shade trees include nitrogen fixing Inga, Erythrinas “coral tree,” crops in the banana family, and other fruit trees like citrus and avocado.
