The Pearl

„Pura Vida!“ is the motto of all Costa Rica. Translated, it means the „pure life“ and stands for appreciating and enjoying life, no matter the circumstances. The appreciation of life that motivates one to always make the best of a situation.

This fundamentally positive attitude is not only beautiful but also contagious. We felt this especially with our small farm project „Finca Doña Elsa“. Shortly after planting our baby coffee trees, the global Corona pandemic broke out, resulting in drastic travel restrictions. This could have meant the early end of our farm, but thanks to our dear neighbors and friends, we managed the impossible in the spirit of „Pura Vida“ and today we are happy about a beautiful and well-maintained farm.

This experience is one of the reasons why we have expanded our farm project to „Finca Doña Elsa & Friends“ – where we support each other and tackle projects together. The coffee „Pura Vida“ is a first result of this project, through which we highlight the Peaberries of our farm together with the Peaberries of our long-time friends like José Elandio and Antonio Barrantes.

Peaberries are a rarity that occurs in small numbers on all coffee plants. Normally, two to three seeds (coffee beans) grow inside a coffee cherry. At the tips of the branches in the crowns of the coffee trees – thus at places that are high up, far from the roots, and therefore less well supplied – sometimes only one seed forms – a very dense and round „Peaberry“. These special beans are in no way inferior in taste to the „normal" coffee beans – on the contrary: they taste just as intense and delicious. 
Due to their curious shape, Peaberries are usually separated, as they change the appearance of the beans and pose a challenge during roasting. In our opinion, a challenge that we are very happy to accept, as it is definitely worth it … all in the spirit of PURA VIDA!

There are many different recipes that lead to an excellent cup of espresso. This example should serve as a basic recipe and can be changed and adapted according to your wishes and willingness to experiment. For each espresso of our line-up we provide a recipe that works well for us.

Preparation in a portafilter (general rules of thumb)

Step by step instructions

1. Take the portafilter out of your brew group and rinse the group briefly.
2. Place your clean and dry portafilter on a scale and tare it.
3. Grind the desired amount of coffee (dose) into your portafilter.
4. Distribute the ground coffee evenly in the sieve, you can use your finger here or a distributor.
5. When tamping, it is important to apply pressure vertically to the coffee to ensure even compaction. It is also important to apply pressure only once to avoid channeling.
6. Remove any coffee residue from the edge of the screen.
7. Start your shot as soon as you place the portafilter in the group.
8. Stop your shot when your target yield is reached.
9. When there’s no more coffees to make, empty, clean and dry your portafilter, flush the group and place the portafilter back into the group to ensure it stays hot.

Troubleshoot

Our quality standards

The roasting craft