Costa Rica — Carlos Moreno Don Eli White Honey Catuai (White Honey)

Tastes Like — 🍊 Candied Orange • 🍑 Dried Apricot • 🍁 Maple • 🍬 Almond Toffee

DETAILS

• Producer: Carlos Moreno
• Farm: Family Operation
• Wet Mill: Don Eli Wet Mill
• Region: El Llano de La Piedra, San Marcos, Tarrazú, Costa Rica
• Varietal: Catuai
• Process: White Honey
• Altitude: 1800–2000 MASL
• Size: 340g / 12oz

INTRO

This coffee is a real family effort! Imported by our friends at Selva Coffee and produced by the father/father-in-law of that husband-wife duo, Carlos Moreno, this lot was processed at a wet mill bearing Carlos's father's name and touched many familial hands on its way to North Carolina.

THE PRODUCER

The Moreno family are well known in Tarrazú region of Costa Rica; they've been called visionaries, game changers, and even pioneers in the specialty coffee game there. Over 20 years ago, when he took over the family operation, Carlos Moreno had a bold vision of not just farming coffee, but also processing it and selling it directly to consumers and roasters.

Fast forward to 2014, when Carlos constructed the wet mill that now bears his father's name—Don Eli Wet Mill. This family operation represents a pioneering approach to specialty coffee in Tarrazú, combining farming, processing, and direct sales in a vertically integrated model.

THE PROCESS

The White Honey process at Don Eli Wet Mill involves:

• 🍒 Cherry Reception — Cherries arrive at the wet mill
• 🔧 Pulping — Mechanical pulping machine removes skin
• 💧 Mechanical De-Mucilaging — Partial mucilage removal
• ☀️ Raised Bed Drying — ~12 days on raised beds
• 🔄 Hand Movement — Turned every couple of hours
• 📦 Resting — Bagged and set aside for weeks
• 🌾 Dry Milling On-Site — Parchment peeled
• ✅ Triple Sorting — By screen size, density, and hand

This meticulous processing creates astonishingly clean fruit characteristics.

THE CUP

This coffee is simply crushable. With astonishingly clean fruit characteristics, like candied orange and dried apricot, you could almost mistake it for a washed coffee. The sweetness is deep and confectionary in nature, reminding us of maple and maple almond toffee. Coffee nerds and their grandmothers alike will swoon.

Flavour Notes

• 🍊 Candied Orange
• 🍑 Dried Apricot
• 🍁 Maple
• 🍬 Almond Toffee

What is the roast recency?

We recommend brewing with beans that are at least two weeks off roast. All beans are roasted to peak flavour at around 6-12 weeks. We have the option to either purchase standard beans (at least 2 weeks but no longer than 6 weeks off roast), or rested beans (at least 7 weeks off roast, no longer than 12 - should we have any left in stock!). For peak flavour, if you are looking to use immediately, we recommend purchasing the rested beans. If you are adding to your rotation of beans, we recommend purchasing the standard and allowing the beans to naturally rest and mature whilst you rotate through other beans.