Costa Rica | El Cerco

In Costa Rica, coffee is a significant agricultural product, and the country is known for producing high-quality Arabica coffee beans. Coffee producers in Costa Rica often take pride in their beans, and many engage in sustainable and specialty coffee practices.

Nowadays, anaerobic fermentation is a near-standard process when making specialty coffee. It’s a method of fermenting green coffee. As the name suggests, beans are fermented without oxygen. During washed processing, coffee cherries are depulped, washed with water and stripped of mucilage through fermentation. In many cases, these steps are done outdoors in fermentation tanks.
In anaerobic fermentation, meanwhile, coffee cherries go through the same steps but in tightly closed tubs or tanks with no oxygen. This airtight environment activates microbes that are otherwise dormant, lending unique flavors to coffee. The sealed-up containers also minimize the impact of external factors on coffee. This, combined with a temperature-controlling device inside the fermentation tank, helps achieve consistent quality.

It’s not an overstatement to say that anaerobic fermentation is a revolution in the specialty coffee industry, one that has few parallels in recent years. It was a rare development that got us all excited about the future of coffee: Though the coffee world tends to be stuck in convention and tradition, it still has the potential to change drastically.