Costa Rica - Rita Herrera | Honey | Pacamara

Doña Rita’s story in coffee begins four generations ago, when her family began producing coffee. For this reason, she even says that their passion for coffee runs in their blood. Doña Rita’s father was passionate about growing coffee, having inherited a small piece of land from his parents. With a great deal of sacrifice, effort, and hard work for all the family, he slowly acquired more land. In Doña Rita’s view, coffee was fundamental in her family being able to move forward. The harvest was always sold to traditional mills, which made it hard to sustain as a model. Then, in 2019, Doña Rita came to know of Bean Voyage, and has been training with them and starting a new phase of her journey in coffee, learning how to process her own coffee, and trying to receive a more equitable price. In this way, she is sustaining a family business with four generations’ worth of history.

In 2020, it was the first year Doña Rita processed her own coffee at her farm, Finca Pergujal. This lot is a full honey, dried in the sun on raised beds. For Doña Rita, one of the most important aspects of her work is the conservation and protection of natural resources. Therefore, she devotes a percentage of her land to the protection of the forest and fauna. In 2019 she grew approximately 180 species of trees native to the area between the coffee trees, giving a home to birds including goldfinches and toucans. Doña Rita’s land also has soil of volcanic origin, due to its proximity to Poás Volcano. Doña Rita firmly believes that the volcanic soil, the altitude, the temperature, the amount of rain, the new varieties she is growing, combined with the love that her family puts into coffee, contributes to the very high-quality coffee the family produces.