El Roble – Costa Rica Yellow Honey Coffee
Suitable for: Espresso & Filter Brewing
Best As: Espresso (Black), Filter (Black)
Flavour Characteristics
Tangerine, White Grape, Marigold, Demerara Sugar, Honey
Origin & Producer Details
Producer: Hermanos Aguilera
Farm: Finca Toño
Region: Naranjos, Costa Rica
Variety: Mixed Cultivar
Process: Yellow Honey
Q-Score: 86.50
Sourced Via: Dylan Aguilera (Direct)
Recommended Rest
For the best tasting brew of this specialty coffee from Costa Rica, we'd suggest resting this for 18–35 days off roast — we wrote a blog on this here.
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About This Coffee
This coffee comes from the Aguilera brothers, a well-respected family of producers in Costa Rica known for cultivars that deliver extremely clean, sweet, and transparent cups. The Yellow Honey processing on this lot helps showcase the natural fruit character — offering citrus fruit sweetness, delicate florals, and a silky mouthfeel.
What is Honey Processing?
Honey processing refers to leaving part of the sticky, sugary fruit layer (mucilage) on the coffee bean while it dries. In Costa Rica there are fractionations of this term... "Yellow Honey" means a moderate amount of mucilage is left on the seed, creating:
- Increased sweetness (Demerara sugar, honey-like texture)
- Balanced acidity (tangerine, white grape)
- Clean florals (marigold)
- A round and syrupy cup without heavy fermentation
About the Aguilera Brothers
Hermanos Aguilera are an iconic coffee-producing family in the Naranjo region of Costa Rica. Their coffees are well known for precision in processing, exceptional farm management, and consistently high scoring lots. The mixed cultivar selection from Finca Toño highlights complexity, balance and clarity.
Where is this coffee sourced from?
It’s sourced directly via Dylan Aguilera from the Aguilera brothers in Costa Rica.
Some of you may remember that we featured coffees from Dylan and his brothers last year. We were so impressed by the transparency, care, attention and endless detail that he was willing to share with us that this year, we decided to offer Dylan a contract to provide us a lot more coffee this year, booking back in February, while our Yellow Honey Milenio was still on the offer list - to get ahead of the current harvest and book some exceptional coffees.
This year, we have worked directly with Dylan to purchase from him and his brothers, and purchased this lot 'El Roble'. When Dylan presented us with these coffees, we were blown away by the quality and asked just how much of the El Roble blend he had - 25 sacks was the answer... So we bought all of it! All 1725kg.
We're so thrilled to be able to strengthen our partnership together and supply some of the best coffees we've found.
This lot contains a number of high value cultivar sourced from Dylan's brothers, and some other smallholders from the Los Robles village. The coffee is processed as a Yellow Honey, with the majority of the coffee coming from the Villa Sarchi variety, acting as a shining a light on the exemplary Costa Rican terroir, in addition to Dylan's exceptional cultivation prowess. Dylan also won the 2023 Cup Tasters Championship in Costa Rica, as any UK Competitor will know, this is one of the hardest disciplines to master.
Preparation Guidance
Preparing this coffee depends a little bit on your equipment and your water quality.
El Roble works beautifully as both espresso and filter. For espresso, expect a sweet, clean cup with citrus fruit acidity and a silky finish. As filter, the clarity and floral character becomes more pronounced.
We have been brewing this coffee using a number of recipes (depending on your equipment), as it's incredibly versatile.
It works well at the traditional 18 in 36 out, but the best shot that we had was actually a turbo shot that we ran through our EK43 in our QC lab. 19.5 in 62 out in 18 seconds, with 10 seconds pre-infusion.
It's worth noting that if you are running Turbo shots, you need a coffee grinder with a burr set fitted that allows for a more unimodal style of grind size particle distribution, otherwise your coffee will likely taste very ashy at these lengths. It's also a good idea to have a really good set of scales (we wrote a guide on this here) to allow for accurate, repeatable results.
For filter, consider brewing at a 1:16 ratio. WE've tried a number of different brew methods, and personally I really like this coffee through the Orea V4, as you can really bring out a little more acidity this way, but feel free to try some of our other recommended recipes here.
El Roble – FAQs
Is this coffee good for espresso?
Yes — this coffee is suitable for espresso and shines as a black espresso due to its sweetness and clarity.
Can I brew this as filter?
Absolutely. It performs extremely well as a black filter coffee with high clarity floral characteristics, in addition to high sweetness.
Why rest this coffee for 18–35 days?
Resting allows the roasted CO₂ to outgas, helping sweetness and clarity develop in the cup. We explain the science in our blog linked above. You can brew it sooner than 18 days, but you won't get the absolute most out of your experience.
What flavour profile should I expect?
Tangerine acidity, white grape sweetness, marigold florals and honey.
