Costa Rica Anaerobic Washed - September 2026
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Time to read 5 min
Some coffee producers spend their careers perfecting one way of doing things. Carlos Fernández Morera of Alajuela, Costa Rica has been growing coffee for nearly 70 seasons, and he’s still experimenting.
That should tell you something about the coffee we picked for this month’s Roaster’s Choice.
Our Costa Rica Anaerobic Washed comes from Carlos and the Diamante plot of his family farm in San Rafael de San Ramón, Alajuela, Costa Rica. It’s a Caturra coffee grown between 1,100 and 1,350 meters above sea level, put through a carefully controlled anaerobic fermentation, fully washed, and slowly dried under the Costa Rican sun.
We roast it medium with a mild body, bringing out a combination of lime, cinnamon, and passion fruit that is bright, warm, tropical, and definitely not your everyday Costa Rican coffee.
Then again, Carlos isn’t exactly your everyday coffee farmer.
Grower: Carlos Fernández Morera
Farm/Plot: Finca El Diamante
Region: San Rafael de San Ramón, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Altitude: 1,100–1,350 MASL
Cultivar: Caturra
Process: Anaerobic Fermentation, Fully Washed
Drying: Sun-dried on patios and raised beds
Harvest: November–March 2025
Roast Level: Medium
Body: Mild
Cupping Notes: Lime • Cinnamon • Passion Fruit
Nearly 70 Seasons of Growing Coffee in Costa Rica
Carlos Fernández Morera’s family has called San Rafael de San Ramón, Costa Rica home since 1895. Carlos himself is approaching his 70th season growing coffee there, which means he has spent the better part of a lifetime getting to know the trees, the soil, and what happens when you take particularly good care of both.
“Coffee is a very grateful crop. If you dedicate a little love, it responds very well.”
He talks about the soil much the same way.
“The earth is a living element, we must take care of it, pamper it, so that it transmits to the coffee plant all its force.”
That connection to coffee has carried into the next generations, too. Carlos has four grown children and nine grandchildren, several of whom remain involved in coffee. His eldest works with administration, his youngest works with exporter Café de Altura, and his oldest grandson is an agronomist.
After that many years and that many generations, you might expect the family to have settled comfortably into doing things the way they’ve always been done in Costa Rica.
Not quite.
The Coffee That Took Fourth in Costa Rica
Carlos has earned some serious recognition for his coffees over the years. In 2016, his El Cerro coffee scored 91.03 points and took third place in the Costa Rica Cup of Excellence.
The following year, he was back.
This time, it was coffee from El Diamante.
Carlos’s 2017 El Diamante earned 89.76 points and fourth place in the Costa Rica Cup of Excellence, putting it among the highest-scoring coffees in the country.
And there was something particularly interesting happening with this one: anaerobic fermentation.
Carlos and the team at Café de Altura had been experimenting with anaerobic processing, paying close attention to how tightly controlling fermentation could influence the final cup.
Clearly, they were onto something.
Costa Rican Coffee Has Always Been a Big Deal
Carlos’s story fits nicely into a much bigger one because Costa Rica has been serious about coffee for a very long time.
Coffee cultivation began taking hold there around 1808, making Costa Rica the first Central American country to establish coffee as a major industry. The country’s first documented coffee export followed in 1820, when coffee was shipped from Costa Rica to Panama.
By the 1840s, Costa Rican coffee was making its way to Europe, bringing enough money into the country that coffee earned the nickname Grano de Oro, or the Golden Bean.
Coffee revenue helped shape Costa Rica’s economy and infrastructure, but the country also developed a reputation for taking coffee quality seriously. Wet processing began gaining ground by the late 1830s, giving producers greater control over fermentation and the quality of the finished coffee.
Almost two centuries later, producers like Carlos are still playing with that same basic question:
What happens when we control the process a little differently?
In the case of El Diamante, quite a lot.
What Makes Anaerobic Washed Coffee Different?
If “anaerobic fermentation” sounds like something that belongs in a laboratory, don’t worry. The basic idea is actually pretty simple.
Once the coffee cherries are harvested, they're pulped to remove the outer skin. Instead of immediately continuing through a traditional washed process, the coffee goes into a sealed tank with selected mucilage and a small amount of water.
Sealing the tank creates an oxygen-limited environment where fermentation can be much more closely controlled.
During fermentation, the team in Costa Rica monitors things like temperature, pH, and Brix, which measures sugar concentration. Those numbers help them understand exactly what is happening inside the tank instead of simply leaving fermentation up to whatever the surrounding environment decides to do that day.
Once fermentation is complete, the coffee is fully washed. Then comes the slow part.
The coffee spends three days drying on open patios before being moved onto raised beds for another eighteen days.
That’s 21 days of drying after an already carefully monitored fermentation process. Specialty coffee is not exactly known for taking shortcuts.
Notes Worth Savoring: Lime, Cinnamon & Passion Fruit
All that work done in Costa Rica would be interesting enough on its own, but ultimately we picked this coffee because of what ends up in the cup. And this one is fun.
We roast Carlos’s Costa Rica Anaerobic Washed to a medium roast with a mild body, keeping plenty of the character developed during fermentation intact.
First up is lime, bringing a clean citrus brightness. Then comes the tropical fruitiness of passion fruit, balanced by a warm cinnamon note that keeps the whole thing from becoming a straight-up fruit bomb.
That cinnamon is also a pretty cool connection to El Diamante’s history.
When the 2017 Cup of Excellence lot was evaluated, judges found a huge range of flavors including cinnamon, red apple, cherry, caramel, apricot, vanilla, brown sugar, molasses, and honey.
We’re talking about different harvests, so we wouldn't expect today's coffee to taste exactly like the coffee judged in 2017. But seeing cinnamon show up again years later is an interesting little thread running through coffees grown on the same plot.
Our version gives you lime, cinnamon, and passion fruit.
Bright enough to keep things interesting, sweet and spicy enough to balance it out, and exactly the kind of coffee Roaster’s Choice was made for.
How Do I Get This Coffee?
Every Roaster's Choice coffee tells a story, and Costa Rica Anaerobic Washed is one of generations of experience, careful experimentation, and a farmer who still believes there’s more to discover about Costa Rica coffees.
Produced by Carlos Fernández Morera in San Rafael de San Ramón, this coffee brings nearly 70 seasons of coffee growing together with the precision of modern anaerobic fermentation. The result is a bright, complex cup with notes of lime, cinnamon, and passion fruit and a fitting reminder that tradition and innovation can taste pretty incredible together.
Order your Roaster's Choice subscription before September 6, 2026, to experience Costa Rica Anaerobic Washed for yourself.
