Sumava Lactico Natural

Farmlevel Story

Francisco Mena’s coffee has been sprinkled throughout our menu year after year, and he is someone that we are proud to partner with. His coffees have exceptionally clean profiles and are consistently high quality. Francisco is best known as the co-founder of Exclusive Coffees, an exporting operation focused on smallholder farmers' representation in the market through creating direct trade relationships. Exclusive Coffees also supports producers’ familiarity of specialty-tier quality requirements and grading to help them earn a higher reward. Francisco and Exclusive Coffees are long-standing partners of ours who inspire us to source with integrity and responsibility. 

Mena grows numerous varieties on his farm Sumava de Lourdes, including Caturra, SL-28, Gesha, and this Villa Sarchi. Sumava de Lourdes is found in the Lourdes de Naranjo micro-region in the West Valley region, situated between 1670-1780 meters. It’s a little drier than the Terrazú region, but still wonderful for growing coffee. We have observed and cupped several lots of Mena’s over the years that display experimentation with processing and fermentation. 

A large part of his experimentation is lactic processing. The process begins with the harvest of perfectly ripe cherries. The cherries’ skin is left intact and they are placed in small bags, which are then placed into large buckets. The buckets or barrels are rotated for 36 hours to ferment, which is when the sugars from the cherry become food for the yeast and bacteria that are responsible for the fermentation. After this fermentation process, the cherries are de-pulped, washed, and laid to dry on raised beds. The time and attention to craft is what makes this cup so special.