bella coffee

One of the coffees that we have right now and really enjoy is the Finca Cerro Paldo from Costa Rica. This is a coffee that has a great body and traces of a brown sugary sweetness.

Now when you look at that webpage about this beautiful coffee, there may be a some information on there that seems rather irrelevant. Farm? Elevation? Varietal?

Allow us to explain:

Why do we care about the farm our coffee comes from? There used to be a thought in coffee that only different regions lended itself to different tastes in the coffee- but we’re way beyond that now. The Cerro Paldo farm is located within the Tarrazu region, but pick up a bag somewhere that just says “Costa Rica Tarrazu” and try it next to the Cerro Paldo and you’ll taste the difference. It’s the attention to detail on a farm that results in such satisfation from the cup. Your coffee farmer picks the cherries at just the peak of ripeness where it’s at it sweetness, and from that point on it’s all about retaining that sweetness. The farm will process the coffee by extracting the seed from the fruit, dry it and sort it to ensure that there are no defects in it. A great coffee has great producers.

Elevation? Yes, it does matter! At a higher altitude, the coffee bean will have a higher density. And the density of coffee has quite a bit to say about its quality.

Varietal? There is more than one species of coffee plant out there. Your two major types of coffee are arabica and robusta. At Bella, we use all arabica, with robusta being a low-elevation coffee used primarily in instant coffee. The varietals that we list are subspecies of the Arabica tree, which in the case of the Cerro Paldo is a mix of Caturra and Catuai. Individual coffee varietals have unique tastes- which we’re seeing more and more as coffee is being sorted on the farms by specie. To try a coffee that is comprised of only one varietal, check out our Finca Los Planes from El Salvador, which is 100% Pacamara.

Buying coffee from individual farms and knowing indivual varietals is great because that’s how you can highlight such big flavors in the coffee. We’re not talking about the richness you get from a dark roast or the strength that you get when brewing- we’re talking about the flavors of that tiny green coffee bean itself. These are flavors that are too good to roast too darkly, and too good not to try before you put that cream in. These are coffees that we are proud to bring to Florida. We always want to know more about our coffees, and taste coffees that broaden the scope of what you think coffee should taste like. Sometimes a unique tasting coffee can challenge you, but more often than not it will knock your flip-flops off.