Sumava SL28

This is the sixth time we have purchased coffee from the Sumava de Lourdes micro-mill in the West Valley of Costa Rica. The mill is located just outside the town of Naranjo de Lourdes, and the two farms that serve it, Monte Llano Bonito and Monte Lourdes, sit between 1600 and 1790 metres above sea level. 

This mill is owned by Francisco Mena, who also co-founded Exclusive Coffees, our export partner in Costa Rica. Francisco is very well-known in Costa Rican coffee circles, having been one of the driving forces behind the country’s ‘micro-mill revolution’, empowering smallholder producers to take control of the types and quality of coffee they produce. After founding Exclusive in 2008, Francisco set about developing microlots with these producers, based on the needs of the expanding specialty coffee market. He also continues to work tirelessly to connect these producers with buyers like us who are willing to pay a premium for their expertise and the quality of the coffee they produce.

Francisco decided to distill all of the knowledge he had gained from working with these talented producers into his own project, and in November 2014, he took control of the Sumava de Lourdes micro-mill and its two attached farms. With help from a Czech investor, he took over the farm, which had not been invested in and cared for properly for some time. The investor also brought the name, Sumava is a national park that straddles the border between Czechia, Austria and Germany. Francisco is a big proponent of young plant tissue and of new varietals, so he set about planting many thousands of trees, and repairing the soils. Francisco and his team took many soil readings to determine what was lacking, before finding sources of organic fertilisers to minimise the use of artificial inputs on the farm.