La Promesa - natural Costa Rica

"sweetness driven coffee with notes of strawberry yogurt, nectarine, fig jam"

The Farm

Finca La Promesa, managed by Vanessa Jiménez and Mario Moreno in La Laguna de Tarrazú, Costa Rica, sits at approximately 1,650 metres above sea level at 9.636656142101886, -84.01708054113818. The Moreno Jiménez family has focused on adopting controlled, safe methods to enhance coffee attributes while maintaining environmental responsibility, with the aim of offering clients high-quality Tarrazú coffee produced with care and dedication. During the harvest season the farm engages around 15 pickers and has approximately three manzanas of coffee under cultivation (about 21,000 square metres), yielding on average 40 fanegas per manzana for a total of roughly 120 fanegas per harvest. Key challenges include pronounced climate variability and elevated agricultural input prices. Investment plans centre on renovation towards more resilient varieties to improve both yield and cup quality, establishing new plantings to increase fruit production, and continuing the development and training activities of a research laboratory for controlled fermentations that began in 2022. A related social and environmental initiative uses this laboratory to provide a space for producers wishing to improve specialty processing practices in a safe and responsible manner.

All coffee is grown under regulated shade using species such as plantain, banana, Grevillea and poró, alongside fruit trees including avocado, mango and lemon. Nutrient management includes four fertilisations per year with chemical formulas such as 19-4-19, complemented by a vermicompost organic application. The farm undertakes annual pruning with post-harvest clean-up and performs replanting and renovation every year. The cultivated varieties include Catuai, Caturra, Pacamara, Catigua, H. Excelencia, Paraíso and Wush Wush. Water from the fruit flotation classifier is reused to irrigate pulp composting thanks to its microbiological load, producing a robust organic amendment; washed processes are not employed, and depulping is carried out with an ecological, low-water approach. Plant health is managed through foliar applications to prevent and control coffee leaf rust, anthracnose and American leaf spot (ojo de gallo), and through soil applications that stimulate growth and protect roots using bio-inputs such as Trichoderma.