Costa Rica -Daniela Gutierrez Farm

Wet Mill: La Montana
Founded: 2009
Altitude: 1900 masl
Region: Tarrazu
Subregion: San Marcos
Farm Size: 4 hectares
Variety: Caturra / Catuai and Typica Costarricense

Tasting Notes:

Producer History:

Jorge Gutierrez is the father in this family and has been growing coee since he was young. He is very passionate about growing and processing coee and spends most of his time working in the plantations until this very day. Before 2009 the Gutierrez family, like many other families in Costa Rica, delivered their coee cherries to a Cooperative and didn’t know what happened with them after they had collected and dropped o their fruits. In the early 2000’s the “micro-mill revolution” began to happen in their area of Tarrazú. A handful of producers chose to invest more than 25 years of their hard earned savings into the installation of their own coee processing facilities. This meant that these farmers were no longer just growing their coee and delivering it to a cooperative. Instead they’ve taken on the arduous task of processing, drying milling, and selling it themselves, from start to finish. The Gutierrez family was inspired and in 2009 Daniela’s dad and her mom Ivania decided to start to process their own coee and roll the dice on their own micro-mill. It’s been a lot of work, learning, and challenges since they took this decision but for them it’s been worthwhile. Now-a-days Jorge is still currently in charge of maintenance in the coee fields while his daughter, Daniela, is in charge of processing the coee and managing their accounts. We love working directly with Daniela due to her professionalism, organization, and great communication. In fact, she was heading towards a professional career after having graduated from an esteemed university in the capital city. However, as she was searching for jobs in the corporate sector she found herself yearning to return to her natural way of life in nature, in the farms with her family. Now, when you tour their farm you can feel that “woman’s touch” in every nook and cranny. Especially when you step into their visitors’ cabin for a coee tasting paired with the cutest treats!

Since they started La Montana Tarrazu micro mill, they have been innovating and improving their operation. Today, they also have a dry mill where they are able to hull, classify by size, density and color of their beans.This allows them to have more control over the whole process and quality. They also have been growing new varieties for them like Catigua, Geisha, Obata.

For the Gutierrez family coee is more than a way of living, it is their passion, they dedicate a lot of work to produce specialty coee, they know that they have a very valuable product in their hands and that is why they feel it is important to constantly improve at all levels. A coee bag means for this family a lot of dedication and eort done by their work team.