Allan/Senel Campos - La Toboba Jocotes
For a producer’s passion for coffee is not the drink but the cherry, plants, soil, farm and family. Therefore, the environment they work in and the people they work with are vital to creating a sustainable product. Good coffee can only be produced under good conditions. Direct trade provides long-term sustainability and transparency in the trade chain that can not be exchanged for certificates or markings.
Senel Campos runs the family farm La Toboba with his son Allan. They do all kinds of processing methods and the drying tables are set up behind the house where they live. The coffee grows a bit higher up on the mountain where they get maximum sun.
In 2021 we were getting no coffee from Senel; after the pandemic, which came in the middle of the 2020 harvest, many producers were left with a lot of coffee in stock because buyers did not come to visit as usual, and many roasters and importers had to reduce their purchases. So when it was time for the next year's harvest, Senel panicked and promised his ENTIRE harvest to the first buyer who came. Fortunately, it didn't happen that way, and we managed to win a small prize.
The Brunca growing region is located in the southern area of Costa Rica and comprises the two youngest coffee-producing cantons in the country, Coto Brus and Pérez Zeledón. The region is bordered by Panama to the East, the Pacific Ocean to the South and West, and the Cordillera de Talamanca mountains—home to Chirripó, the tallest peak in Costa Rica—to the North. Coffee cultivation here began in the 1950s when Italian settlers and local Costa Ricans established the first coffee farms in the area.
about the coffee.
Today, Don Senel has two farms, Las Huacas and El Cola Roja, planted with Catuai, Caturra, Obata and Villa Sarchi trees. The topography of the land is broken and uneven, but both farms enjoy nutrient-rich soil and a unique microclimate created between two nearby mountain canyons.
The micro-mill has changed quite a lot from its beginnings in 2014, including raised beds and greenhouse drying areas and more modernized equipment and tools. Processing at the mill has also changed from the more traditional practices utilized at first, now involving the measurement and tracking of variables like pH and Brix degrees to control and influence the final cup profile of each microlot.
cup tasting notes.
orange, chocolate milk, grape
