Los Santos, Tablón del Guarco · 1750–2000 m · Catuai · White Honey
Three generations, one micro-mill
Alexis Ramírez started as a farmer in 1990 on land inherited by his wife’s family. For decades, the harvest went to a local cooperative — traceability lost, quality out of their hands. His dream was to do things differently.
In 2015, the family took the leap and built their own micro-mill, “Los Campos” — to process every micro-lot themselves and take full control of quality from cherry to bag. Two years later, in 2017, don Alexis passed away. He lived to see his dream come true.
Today the mill is run by the Ramírez-Navarro family — his children. Coffee reaches Europe via direct trade, no intermediaries. This lot came straight from Los Campos to you.
White honey sits between washed and natural — clarity, sweetness and a delicate fruit note in the same cup, without either taking over.
What is white honey?
Costa Rica is a pioneer of honey processing. The cherry is pulped immediately after picking — almost all of the fruit flesh is removed, leaving only a thin layer of mucilage on the bean. It then dries on raised African beds for 12–25 days, turned every couple of hours for an even result.
The honey colour indicates how much mucilage remains — and that determines the flavour:
White is the cleanest, most refined end of the spectrum. The result: more body and sweetness than a classic washed, but none of the funky fermentation notes of a natural. Paired with Catuai at high altitude, this gives you the bright apple acidity and jasmine florality you find in the cup.
Los Santos — Costa Rica’s finest altitudes
Los Santos is Costa Rica’s most celebrated coffee-growing region, known as the “Zone of the Saints” — every village bears a saint’s name (San Marcos, San Pablo, Santa María…). Tablón del Guarco, where the Ramírez-Navarro family farms, sits between 1750 and 2000 metres above sea level.
These altitudes slow the ripening of the coffee cherry considerably. Slower ripening means denser beans and more concentrated sugars — that’s where the sweetness and structure in your cup come from.