Costa Rica is a small producer that punches well above its volume, and the reason comes down to one law and one structural change most drinkers have never heard of. In 1989 the government banned the planting of Robusta outright, betting the entire national crop on Arabica quality — no other producing country committed that decisively. The ban was lifted in February 2018 to let ICAFE, the national coffee institute founded in 1933, approve Robusta in lowland zones where Arabica struggles, but in practice the crop remains almost entirely Arabica.
The bigger shift came from the farms. When coffee prices collapsed in the early 2000s, most Costa Rican growers were still selling cherry into large cooperative mills that blended it away into anonymous volume. La Candelilla Estate in Tarrazú opened the country's first independent micro-mill in 2000, and found that by processing its own cherry it could control the quality and set its own price. ICAFE counted one micro-mill in 1999 and 79 by 2019. That is why so much Costa Rican coffee on a shelf today carries a farm name instead of just a region — the producers took the processing step back.
It also explains the honey coffees. Once producers had their own wet mills, they could experiment with leaving mucilage on the bean through drying, the pulped-natural or miel process Costa Rica is now identified with. Yellow, red and black honeys differ in how much mucilage stays on and how slowly the lot dries, and the result is a heavier, sweeter cup than a fully washed coffee off the same trees.
Eight official growing regions are recognized: Tarrazú, Tres Ríos, Central Valley, West Valley, Orosi, Turrialba, Brunca and Guanacaste. Tarrazú is the largest and the name most likely to be on your bag. Expect clean, structured coffee with citrus and stone-fruit acidity sitting over a chocolate and caramel base.
Costa Rica's harvest runs November through March, which puts the peak-freshness window January through June. Reading this in August, you are past it — current-crop Costa Ricans are months off the boat, so buy on the roast date rather than a harvest claim, and expect the next genuinely fresh arrivals after the new year.
James Hoffmann and fermentation scientist Lucia Solis processed a single lot from Finca San Miguel Urias in Antigua, Guatemala four separate ways, so the only variable left in the cup is what happened after picking. Kits ship through participating roasters in mid-September, ahead of a live global cupping on 3 October.
Nas Jaafar won in Brussels with a two-stage brew over a Hario Switch base: 15g of coffee, 200g of water at 92°C, a circular pour to 100g, close the valve at 0:58, add the remaining 100g at 1:00, open at 2:00, finished at 2:10. The percolation-then-immersion split is the whole idea and it transfers to ordinary coffee — you don't need his Panama geisha to try it.
The C40 Lab Series now offers a dual-row shark-tooth burr that Comandante says is built for the density and reduced brittleness of light roasts. At around £265 it sits at reference-grinder money, and the live argument on r/pourover is not whether it grinds well but whether the geometry earns the gap over a standard C40.
Brooklyn Roasting recalled 1,219 units of cold brew concentrate last month after it was held at ambient temperature, an FDA Class II botulism risk with no illnesses reported. University of Georgia researchers found why the same mistake matters at home: with no boiling water and lower acidity, bacteria introduced during brewing survive in cold brew for nine to twelve days instead of dying off, so clean equipment and the fridge from the start are the entire fix.
Thirty-six competitors meet in Boston on 21 August, each bringing their own AeroPress and filters, judged on taste alone with no presentation or style score. Spectator tickets are $15, and the winner takes a travel voucher to the world final in Mexico City in December.
Shelbru's JUNE is a double-walled, vacuum-insulated stainless cone that the company says holds the brew to a 1–2°C drop between post-bloom and the four-minute mark, against roughly 9°C for a glass dripper and 11°C for plain metal. Those are Shelbru's own figures on a variable most home brewers have never measured; it is a Kickstarter preorder under $100 closing mid-August, shipping in September.
The official archive lists each winning recipe in full — position, dose, filter setup, grind, water temperature and mineral content, and a timed pour schedule. The 2025 winner's reads 18g upright, two paper filters, 84°C water at 125ppm, stir at 25 seconds, press from 50, then 70g of bypass water in the carafe.
Stirring ground espresso with fine needles breaks up clumps so water cannot channel through the puck, a defect you taste as a thin, sour shot rather than see. Liz Clayton traces the technique from John Weiss's single dissecting needle in 2005 to today's machined tools, and notes a bent paperclip does most of the same work.
The honest answer is neither of the two loud ones: there is no way to know without lab testing, roasting has not been shown to eliminate ochratoxin A, and specialty grading is not a guarantee. What is clear is the regulatory gap — the EU caps OTA in roasted coffee at 3 µg/kg while the US sets no federal limit for it — alongside a practical exposure risk that remains very low.
Thanks for reading ☕
Two of this week's entries are recipes from world champions, and both of them run on equipment already sitting on ordinary kitchen counters — which is most of what we look for around here. If any of it was useful, forward this issue to a coffee-obsessed friend or send them the sign-up page. See you next Thursday.