Costa Rica Honey Process Coffee

A honey-process coffee from Costa Rica's Central Valley. The bean dries with some of the sticky fruit still on it, which gives the cup a rounded sweetness alongside red apple, citrus peel and almond. Brewed on a Kalita Wave at 94°C.

Origin & Story

There is no honey in honey-process coffee. The name comes from the sticky layer of fruit, called mucilage, that sits between the skin of a coffee cherry and the seed inside. Most coffees have that layer washed off before drying. In a honey coffee the skin and pulp are removed but some mucilage is left on, and the bean dries coated in it, tacky and sweet like syrup.

Costa Rica is where the style took hold, and the country has been growing coffee for a long time. Planting began in the Central Valley in 1779, and by 1829 coffee had overtaken cacao, tobacco and sugar as the main export. The money it brought helped pay for railways and for the National Theater.

Honey processing grew out of the small mills that farmers began building in the early 2000s, when coffee prices were at record lows. Processing their own coffee gave families more say over quality and price, and room to experiment. Honey coffee also uses far less water than a fully washed one. In 2006, honey coffees from one of those micro-mills took first and second place at Costa Rica's Cosecha de Oro competition, and the style spread.

The color names, white, yellow, red and black, describe how much mucilage stays on the bean. White keeps the least and tastes closest to a washed coffee. Yellow and red keep progressively more, and black keeps the most. The more fruit stays with the bean, the more the cup leans toward syrupy sweetness and deeper fruit.

This cup sits on the clean side of honey coffees. Red apple and citrus peel come first, then honey and almond, with the clarity of a washed coffee and a rounder sweetness. A Kalita Wave, with its flat bed, brews it evenly. Start with water at 94°C and 18 g of coffee to 300 g of water.

Reading the Flavor Profile

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