COSTA RICAWENDY ALVARADO

About coffee

Joicafe is run by Wendy Alvarado and her two sisters. The work they do at their wet mill is so impressive that they have slowly, but surely, made quite a reputation for themselves as some of the best processors and producers to come out of their little, remote town in the southern region of Costa Rica. They have definitely brought pride to their family as is easily seen when their parents speak about the excellent work which they are doing. Their family has always been farmers, but not necessarily with coffee as this area was mainly known for grazing cattle and growing tomatoes. In fact, coffee was never seen as a great option as an agricultural product in their area as the Brunca Growing Region had a bad reputation for quality and therefore coffees from their town would fetch unsustainable prices. However, since this particular town at the base of Costa Rica’s tallest peak, Chirripo, named “Vista de Rivas” has the highest elevations and very fertile soils – the Alvarado Family had the vision and took the risk of starting to grow specialty coffee.

About processing

They collect the ripest cherries and tell us that for naturals it is particularly important to select only ripe fruit. After measuring the coffee their pickers picked, they bring them to the wet mill and here they pass it through a floating system where they clean and disinfect the fruit by removing strange materials and unripe fruit. They let the clean cherries rest for 50 hours in mountains, then they spread out the cherries in a thinner layer and sundry them on patios covered by a greenhouse to protect the coffee from rain for 20-25 days depending on the weather.