Costa Rica San Diego Tarrazú Natural Anaerobic SHB 2024

Beneficio San Diego

Beneficio San Diego is Costa Rica’s most innovative mill. Since its establishment in 1888, the mill has never stopped striving for progress and improvement and takes great pride in its ever-increasing efficiency and quality standards. Today, Beneficio San Diego specializes in processing coffee from the Tarrazú and Tres Ríos regions and takes a leading role in working with producers to benefit the community and engage in sustainable coffee production.

What is Anaerobic Fermentation?

This Anaerobic processed coffee starts with the careful harvest of fresh cherries at peak ripeness, achieving a high sugar content—our team aims for a Brix degree of 26. This concentrated fruit sugar fuels the fermentation process.

During fermentation, whole coffee cherries (with the fruit intact) are placed in an oxygen-free environment, naturally stimulating anaerobic fermentation. This process develops lactic and malic acids in the tank, resulting in a coffee with complex flavors.

Beneficio San Diego has dedicated years to refining its anaerobic processing infrastructure, establishing precise temperature and time controls to ensure the fermentation enhances the coffee's natural flavors. The flavor profile of this Tarrazú Natural Anaerobic coffee features spicy notes of cinnamon and cloves, beautifully balanced with the rich florals of hibiscus and rose hips.

Costa Rican Coffee

Costa Rican coffee producers are highly innovative, embracing new trends in agriculture and fermentation techniques to continually improve coffee quality. While the Caturra variety is still prevalent, it's being replaced by more sustainable varieties like Obata due to challenges like pests and disease. The country's eight coffee-growing regions, influenced by diverse terroir, offer a rich variety of flavor profiles, with unique microlots produced through processes like honey and anaerobic fermentation.

Costa Rican Coffee History

Costa Rica's focus on social equality, universal healthcare, and education since abolishing its military in 1948 has contributed to peace, prosperity, and environmental conservation. The country's coffee industry is highly regulated, ensuring fair wages and sustainable practices, with producers receiving about 80% of the coffee's value.

Costa Rica prioritizes quality over quantity, reflected in its unique system of measuring coffee cherries by fanega (a unit of volume), encouraging the selection of the ripest cherries for premium coffee. Although Costa Rica’s coffee production has decreased since the country’s peak in the 1990s, the country’s brand recognition garnered over the decades has earned high international value for Costa Rican coffee. Read more in our Costa Rica Origin Report.