Description
Producer: Max Salazar
Location: Los Cipreses, West Valley, Costa Rica
Process: Black Honey
Variety: SL28
Altitude: 1700m
Tasting notes: RASPBERRY JAM | FLORAL | STRAWBERRY PIE
Max Salazar and his cousins, Cristian and Greivin, had a vision to start a mill to be able to process their family’s coffee and maximize the quality of their crops. The families joined together in 2016 to start the mill, with Claudio Salazar, Max’s father, and Danilo Salazar, Cristian and Greivin’s father, funding the project.
Max emphasizes that the coffee from the mill is unique because it is a small family project, striving each day to create a high quality product that celebrates the terroir of the farms where the family cultivate coffee.
Across the Salazar’s farms the family produces Caturra, Yellow, Red, and Orange Catuai, Villalobos, Obata, Centroamericano, Gesha, Pink Gesha, SL-28, San Roque, Milenio, Pacamara, Monte Cristo, and Bourbon.
Max and his family have been working strictly with micro and nanolots since opening their mill, learning by experimentation and experience. The mill primarily offers Honey and Natural process coffees, combining slow fermentation with different drying methods.
Max and the rest of the Salazar family look forward to making improvements to the mill, and gradually achieving greater sustainability in their coffee production. This will include new technologies and equipment, greater efficiency with water and energy, and continuing to take steps toward mitigating climate change and creating natural habitat for local animals by planting trees in their coffee farms.
As few in the area, Salazars don’t use herbicides and weeds are controlled with mulching instead of chemical sprays.
This SL28 lot went through Black Honey process. Max’s process begins with ensuring high quality cherries to start with, manually harvesting ripe cherries only after they’ve reached a high enough sugar content. Whole cherries are fermented for 48 hours before being pulped, ensuring all of the mucilage is retained on the coffee. The pulped coffee is then dried on raised beds for approximately 25 days to reach its optimal moisture %.
SL-28 is a variety of Arabica coffee that originally comes from Kenya. It’s one of the most famous coffee varieties in the specialty coffee world. Well known for its bright acidity, juicy body, and complex fruity notes — often blackcurrant, citrus, and tropical fruit.
Espresso guide
Straight shot:
94-95°C group temperature
20g dry mass in, 47-50g liquid out
26-28s total time
Peak group pressure 9 bar
For Americano and milk drinks:
94-95°C group temperature
20g dry mass in, 44-47g liquid out
28-31s total time
Peak group pressure 9 bar
