Costa Rica White Honey Tarrazú

Sunday starts the final week of April, and thus the final week to join in our anniversary giveaway. You can enter by leaving a comment on our blog, here–and be sure to read the post to find out additional ways to win. We’re giving away coffee, mugs, t-shirts, gift cards and more: 35 years is worth celebrating. We celebrated last week with a family vacation. The kids were on their spring break, and we had a relaxing family trip to the beach. It was a good space for all of us to recharge.

Happy kids in the aquarium wave room

I think that the coolest thing we saw at the ocean was baby harbor seals nursing. I’m not sure that I’ve seen such small seal pups before, and they were darling. On the same hike, at Point Lobos, we also saw a raft of sea otters, twenty plus, floating and playing together. And everywhere we went on our trip the wildflowers were amazing. In honor of all this natural beauty, we have an Earth Day special tomorrow (4/22/17) of $1.00 off any drink if you bring in your own mug.

Our coffee for you this week is a white honey bean from the San Marcos Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. I wrote about honey coffees a few weeks ago here. I know the term “honey” can be confusing, and adding a color to it is just as misleading. To clarify, the honey process has become so refined that producers are using colors to describe how much of the mucilage has been left on the bean. In order from most to least, the terms black, red, yellow, and white are used. So a black honey will be the most like a natural process, and a white honey will be most like a washed process.

This coffee is a micro-lot from Finca El Llano, a farm owned by Oscar Solís and his sons Horacio and Alejandro. It’s located in San Marcos de Tarrazú, at around 6000 feet elevation. The Solís family have their own mill, so they are able to control the process of their coffee from seed to export. This leads to a high quality, high grown coffee, with a lot of care put into the final product. You taste this is your cup: it’s roasted light, and has a sweet melon or stone fruit flavor, with a lingering caramel finish.

You can try a cup on us this week with the code sweet honey*. And while northern California did pass into the history books this week with the wettest year on record (check out the Northern Sierra 8-station precipitation index here), we are supposed to have a sunny weekend. Enjoy!
–Holly Fike

*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Costa Rica White Honey Tarrazú. Code expires on 4.27.17. Limit one free cup per customer please. Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA. Code/Offer has no cash value