COSTA RICADON SENEL

About coffee

Like we’ve seen so commonly in the coffee culture of Costa Rica – The Campos Family was motivated to start their project due to the low prices they were receiving when delivering their cherries to cooperative and multinational mills. The financial sustainability of the farm was so threatened that in 2014 Senel decided to try processing specialty coffee on their own. Along with his family, Senel was able to produce 2 bags of coffee by changing their picking to select only the ripest cherries and using an old run down pulper (with a laundry machine motor). Miraculously the experiment went well and the coffee scored above 86 points – proving to Senel and his family that they could indeed create specialty grade coffee on their own and have the opportunity to ask for more money for their product. Their dream was to one-day have a market to be able to process their entire production.

Café Don Senel is a small family business formed by the founders Senel Campos and Maria Eugenia Jimenez, together with their children. This year Don Senel comes with many new projects, the first one is planting a new farm with exotic and new varieties: Catigua, SL28, Ethiopia, Java, Milenio, Cassiopea, Geisha; excellent results are expected from this new plantation also as part of this project they grew avocado trees that help provide shade for the coffee and give them another way of income.
Secondly, they have created a new drying area to have more space and are considering installing their own dry mill, because this would allow them to have more control of their quality and preparation of the coffees as well as speeding up this process that can take more time at a second party dry mill.

About processing

NATURAL RESPOSADO – The coffee fruit is carefully collected by the Campos’ trusty seasonal workers and taken down to their wet mill. The cherries are passed through a floating and de-stoning system which separates out inferior fruit and foreign material. Then, the well selected cherries are taken to raised drying beds for a pre-drying phase. After about 4 or 5 days, the family puts the semi-dry fruit back into fresh water for 24 hours. After the long soak and re-absorption of moisture, they pulp the fruit and put it back on raised drying beds. In order to ensure a safe drying environment for a moisture shocked bean, they shade the parchment with a mesh cover. After being put back out to dry as a honey, the parchment takes 15-22 days to fully complete its careful drying phase.