How Should You Brew a Central American Coffee Like Red Honey?

This Costa Rican Red Honey Catuai comes from Finca Sol Naciente in the Tarrazú region at 1,750 meters and is brewed as a pour-over to protect its sweetness. The cup shows sweet orange, cream, grapefruit, honey, and black tea. Use a medium-fine grind, water just off the boil, and a steady pour to keep the honey process clarity intact.

Tarrazú sits about 40 kilometers from San José, and the farm covers roughly 7 hectares, with 6 planted to coffee, half a hectare as mountain reserve, and half for processing and drying. That reserve borders the Los Santos Biological Corridor, where rainforest climate and varied ecosystems shape growing conditions for coffee, a reminder that central american coffee quality is tied to the land around the trees.

Costa Rica is famous for its honey-processed coffee, and Finca Sol Naciente in the Tarrazú region is a prime example. This Front Street Coffee Costa Rica Finca Sol Naciente Red Honey Catuai comes from the Tarrazú region at an altitude of 1,750 meters, uses the red honey process, and showcases rich flavors of sweet orange, cream, grapefruit, honey, and black tea. This article will guide you through Finca Sol Naciente's growing background, the characteristics of the Catuai variety, and the features of the red honey process, and share Front Street's cupping experience and pour-over parameter recommendations to help you better brew this exceptionally sweet coffee.

Front Street Coffee Costa Rica · Finca Sol Naciente Red Honey Catuai Region: Costa Rica, Tarrazú Farm: Finca Sol Naciente Altitude: 1,750 meters Process: Red Honey Variety: Catuai

Flavor: Sweet Orange, Cream, Grapefruit, Honey, Black Tea

Sweetness is a bonus that can make a coffee bean stand out in cupping, and it is also a flavor performance that many brewers relentlessly pursue. When it comes to which origin's coffee often possesses excellent sweetness, many people immediately think of Costa Rica, where local farms are proficient in various honey processing methods, giving coffee an elegant and clean sweetness.

This time, Front Street brings you a Costa Rica Front Street Finca Sol Naciente Red Honey coffee, to taste together the charm of the sweetness bestowed by the honey process.

Tarrazú Region

Tarrazu

Finca Sol Naciente (Café Sol Naciente) is located in Santa María de Dota within Costa Rica's Tarrazú region, about 40 kilometers from the capital San José, and coffee is the most renowned product here.

The farm sits at an altitude of 1,750 meters, with a total area of about 7 hectares, of which 6 hectares are planted with coffee trees, half a hectare is kept as a mountain reserve, and the other half hectare is used for processing and drying after coffee cherry harvest. After checking the map, Front Street found that the reserve adjacent to the plantation is exactly the starting point of Los Santos Biological Corridor, connected to the national forest reserve, covering three different types of rainforest climate, providing 14 natural ecosystems for the animals dwelling here, running parallel to the Talamanca Mountain Range, and is a highly recommended adventure destination for hiking enthusiasts.

The Los Santos area is surrounded by three cantons, a lush valley where almost every household grows coffee. Influenced year-round by warm, moist Pacific air currents, annual rainfall reaches 2,400 millimeters, with an average temperature of 19°C, creating ideal growing conditions for coffee trees between 1,500 and 2,100 meters altitude. Finca Sol Naciente is nestled in the embrace of this pristine green belt, and strolling through the farm, you can often encounter various rare small animals.

Finca Sol Naciente

Sol Naciente

In 1990, Arturo Bonilla and his partner Xinia Martínez jointly purchased this land, originally used as pasture, and began growing coffee. Today the farm is managed by them and their family. To implement fine management, they divided the farm into multiple micro-lot parcels, then matched each parcel with corresponding processing methods according to its terroir conditions, striving to create higher-quality and traceable coffee.

Arturo and his partner officially completed the ecological micro-processing station in 2015, named "Sol Naciente." The farm's logo consists of three key elements—the rising sun, coffee, and nature—each carrying their beautiful expectations for the concept of sustainable development.

Since its founding, founder Don Arturo Bonilla has devoted himself fully to specialty coffee cultivation and the construction of environmentally friendly ecological agriculture. It is said that in the first year of establishment, a green frog suddenly jumped onto his back, and it was later discovered that this frog was actually a rare, endangered local species. This little episode both surprised and delighted him, and made the farm owner always regard protecting the ecological environment as his foremost responsibility on the path of coffee cultivation.

Currently, the farm mainly cultivates three varieties: Catuai, Ethíopia 47, and Geisha. In addition, to increase farm variety diversity, the owner has also cultivated many experimental varieties. The batch of Front Street Finca Sol Naciente coffee beans that Front Street procured this time is the Catuai variety, using the red honey process.

Catuai

Catuaí

Friends who enjoy studying varieties should be familiar with Catuai. This name often appears in the variety column of Central American coffees, such as Front Street's bean list including Front Street Elida Estate, Front Street Panama Butterfly, Front Street Panama Diamond Mountain, Front Street Honduras Sherry, and others where Catuai can be seen.

Catuai was artificially hybridized by the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) in São Paulo State, Brazil, by crossing Yellow Caturra with Mundo Novo, released in 1972, and originally named "H-2077." Among them, Mundo Novo is the product of natural hybridization between the two ancient varieties Bourbon and Typica, first discovered in 1943 in Tietê, São Paulo, Brazil.

As a second-generation hybrid, Catuai inherits both Caturra's advantages of short plant size, excellent acidity, and suitability for full-sun exposure, and Mundo Novo's characteristics of high yield, strong disease resistance, and good cupping performance. In terms of cultivation, Catuai also has strong resistance to disasters, especially heavy rain or strong wind weather.

In addition, due to its short plant size, it can be planted at twice the density of other varieties, and it is also more convenient for pest and disease control. Precisely because Catuai performs excellently in disease resistance, pest resistance, yield, and growing environment, once released it quickly attracted many Central and South American countries to introduce and cultivate it.

Red Honey Process Red Honey

In freshly picked coffee cherries, pectin is a very sweet substance, with high water content, high sugar content, and tightly attached to the inner seed (coffee bean). When coffee cherries are processed using the honey method, different degrees of pectin retention result in different colors during drying, and the naming of the process also differs accordingly.

The so-called red honey process means retaining 50–80% of the pectin for sun drying, falling exactly between the washed and natural processes, and is also the most common honey color type on the market. The darker the bean color, the fewer times it needs to be manually turned—black honey, closest to natural, is usually turned only once a day, red honey needs to be turned several times a day, while yellow honey must be turned every hour. Coffee cherries processed as red honey take about 12 days to dry completely.

Front Street observed from red honey processed green beans that the color before roasting is lighter than black honey, and it smells of a faint fermented fruitiness. After roasting and cupping, one can often perceive layered fruit aromas and a clean finish, and in addition to obvious sweetness, it also has bright acidity and a light fermented wine-like sensation.

To preserve the fresh fragrance and honeyed charm of this Front Street Finca Sol Naciente Red Honey Catuai, while highlighting the caramelized substances in the coffee, Front Street uses a medium-light roast and conducts cupping and tasting immediately.

In terms of dry aroma, this Front Street Finca Sol Naciente honey-processed Catuai, once ground, gives off obvious sweet aromas of orange, dried fruit, and cream, accompanied by pink floral notes, hazelnut, and a hint of fermentation. The aroma is rich and dense, very pleasant to smell. As hot water is poured for brewing, the coffee begins to transform into sweet aromas of honey and toffee.

Through slurping, Front Street perceives diverse layers of fruit flavors in the coffee: at high temperature, it first presents notes of red florals, grape, dried prune, and apricot; as the temperature drops slightly, the fruit acidity becomes bright and refreshing, citrus-like aromas fill the mouth, interwoven with a subtle black tea note. The overall mouthfeel is clear, with a sweet aftertaste.

Front Street Costa Rica Red Honey Process Coffee Bean Pour-Over Recommendations

Light-roasted coffee beans have a harder texture and require higher water temperature and finer grinding to bring out the aroma of the Geisha coffee.

Dripper: V60 Water temperature: 91–92°C Dose: 15g Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15 Grind size: fine granulated sugar (80% passing a No. 20 sieve)

Three-stage extraction: For the first stage, use 30g of water to bloom for 30 seconds, pouring evenly in circles to form a dome; for the second stage, pour 95g of hot water; when the coffee bed drops halfway, begin pouring the third stage of 100g, until all the coffee has finished dripping. Note to start pouring from the center point, using a gentle, small stream in circles throughout, to avoid uneven extraction.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.