Costa Rica, Mariana Washed

Description

Producer Diego Robelo, Aquiares Estate Farm/Mill Aquiares Estate Location Turrialba, Cartago Province, Costa Rica Altitude 1,000 - 1,400 masl Process Washed Cultivar Mariana (F1 hybrid) Harvest February 2026 Expect notes of Caramel, Vanilla, Candied Lemon Aquiares means "land between rivers" in the indigenous Huetar language, named for the two rivers that bracket the estate's slopes on Costa Rica's Turrialba Volcano. Six hundred hectares of coffee grow here under native shade, a canopy Diego Robelo and his team have spent two decades building. Since 2000 more than 50,000 native shade trees have gone in across the farm. The result: Aquiares now captures over four times the carbon it emits each year, (certified to ISO 14064 by INTECO under Costa Rica's NAMA Café programme and verified on the ground by a research station run jointly with CIRAD and CATIE). The wildlife has answered in kind. Bird species recorded on the estate have climbed from 30 in 2003 to over 140. This washed lot is Mariana, an F1 hybrid bred for leaf-rust resistance and cup quality, and one of the first propagated from seed rather than tissue culture. Grown under that shade canopy, it lands mellow and balanced in the cup. For Diego Robelo, who has run the farm since 2013, success is measured on one timeline: being here in 100 years.