Costa Rica, Las Lajas Black Diamond

We try not to keep coffee on the shelves for long, so if we don't have a particular coffee in stock, we have to replenish the order after the roasting day. We roast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, pack the coffee and send it out on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Las Lajas and the Chacon family are truly legends of the specialty world. The family farm has been in existence since 1840. The 1990s brought it significant losses, and the family sold some of the land to be able to invest in the quality of production - they set up their own washing station and coffee mill, and planted very different varieties of arabica, such as SL-28, geisha. Villa Sarchi, Java. This decision brought them a very big success and business stability. Today they produce some of the most interesting coffees in the industry.

After harvesting, the coffee fruit goes to the mill, where it is washed and sorted by quality using optical sorters. It then goes through three stages of drying. The first 10 days it dries in the sun, the next eight days it remains outside but already sheltered from the sun, finally it goes to the patio-greenhouse where it spends 15 days. After this time, it is shelled and for a further 60 days it goes into the warehouse, where the grains mature, stabilise and gain shelf life - skipping this stage could result in a rapid loss of quality.