About Jacob Montero of Costa Rica

This anaerobic natural process is prepared by Carlos’ son, Jacob, who does all the processing for their coffee. After Carlos makes the trip to El Llano lot to measure and pick up the extremely ripe cherries that his pickers skillfully select from this lot, he drops them off at their Don Eli micro mill where Jacob immediately puts the cherries into grain pro bags. He lets the coffee fruit ferment in those bags under the shade of the wet mill. Jacob frequently checks on his fermentations and moves them around once in a while. When his watchful senses realizes that the coffee is ready it goes to the drying stage.
When processing naturals it’s very important for Jacob to pay special attention to the initial drying phase. So, for the first few days the cherries are moved constantly in order to prevent too much fermentation. After a week, when the cherries look dryer they move them with a rake-like tool about every hour during the day and it takes roughly between 22 days and one month, depending on the weather, for the coffee to dry to its optimal moisture content. It’s very important for Jacob and Carlos after drying is done to let the coffee rest in the warehouse for about one month, especially the Natural process which seems to develop a lot of flavors while being in dried cherry for a month or so
Dry Mill

This was the second harvest that Don Eli was capable of hulling or peeling their parchment. The coffee was peeled off its parchment in the Don Eli warehouse and then taken to be classified in the nearby San Lorenzo Dry Mill. In San Lorenzo the coffee was sorted by density, screen size, and sorted by electronic color machine.