Producer Story

Juanra is a pioneer of sustainable farming practices or biodynamic farming in the region of Tarrazu, Costa Rica, and quite possibly in all of Central America. He has come to the understanding that the earth which is the base of his operation and all life should be the focus of his efforts. Juanra often mentions how mistreated the land was before by the producing practices of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. His mission is to nurture the earth back to fertility and its state as a living organism. The way he achieves this is by not purchasing and using any chemicals in his farm; instead he works by hand and makes all of his own solutions from by-products of the farm in order to fertilize and battle pests and disease. His farm has become a classroom where agronomists from all over come to experiment, learn, and share their findings with one another. Juanra loves to share his knowledge and experience as a biodynamic farmer and has made a huge impact in the way many farmers in Tarrazu manage their production. In addition to growing coffee biodynamically, Juanra also diversifies his farm and cash flow by producing world class avocados and granadillas.

During the 1930s and 1940s Juanra’s parents began growing coffee, and so he grew up immersed in coffee production as a young child. In 1985 Juanra acquired land that was handed down to him from his family and that’s when he really started dedicating more time and work to the coffee plantation. In 2014 due to low prices and the deteriorating sustainability of coffee; Juanra’s family decided to innovate their business and process their own coffee for the growing specialty market. That’s why “Monteroga'' was created as a family company. Today Juanra’s son, Emmanuel, and his wife, Beth, are very involved in this entrepreneurial project and they all are dedicated to improving the way they produce and process coffee by making it more sustainable financially and environmentally. It’s also important to note the many pivotal courses that Juanra took in order to learn about sustainable practices in the farm and organic products. He learned how to prepare and apply earthworm tea, biol, sulfocalcica that are organic fertilizers to control pests in the coffee and avocado fields. These organic products are so important for the soil, to keep it alive, and to rebuild the soil that has been so damaged in the past by applying chemical products that are really bad for the ecosystem and the soil. This family has made a big effort to keep the farm sustainable and, at one point, almost lost the entire production of their farm because Juanra tried to go 100% organic. He decided that it was nearly impossible both financially and productionally that he had to change to a more sustainable form of practice and it has since been much better for his farm.

Lot Description - El Descanso

This specific lot is at an altitude of 1800 masl, planted with Catuai, located in the highest points of San Isidro in the town of Leon Cortes, which is one of the most fertile lands of the area, also Juanra´s sustainable management helps with the quality in the cup. The name of the lot, El Descanso, translates to “to take a rest” - because the process takes so long to complete and this is a place where the farm workers normally stop to take a break.

Processing -  Natural

Juanra´s wet mill is designed to get the best results while making a positive impact on the environment. It is equipped with a simple Penagos machine where they can depulp the cherries using only gravity if they need to. First, the cherries get dropped into a receiving tank; where they are moved to a floating system using a pump that recycles the water being used.  The simple floating system removes the defected and unripe cherries in order to ensure more depth in the cup and sends its water back down to the recycling pump. In this case, which is a natural process, the fruit is placed in raised beds and left to rest in covered mounds for 3 days and after 3 days they move the coffee until it reaches an optimum humidity.

Dry Mill

Juanra chooses to have his parchment coffee dry milled at a local operation nearby in Tarrazu at a town called San Lorenzo. There, the coffee gets dry hulled, sorted by density and screen size, and finally gets hand sorted for any primary defects before it’s time to bag up for export. 

What 's new?

Year after year Juanra continues to work in a sustainable way with the environment, diversifying his coffee activity with the production of avocado and with his own farm where he can create his own organic fertilizers.