Costa Rica Herbazu

Zoka Cupping Score: 90 / Multi-time Cup of Excellence® winning farm.  

This coffee ships for free. 

Zoka has been buying from Herbazu for 12 seasons. Jeff Babcock, Zoka Founder and CEO, was introduced to Herbazu while a judge for the Cup of Excellence® (COE) competition hosted in Costa Rica in 2010. As a COE® judge, Jeff noticed coffees from the Herbazu farms were not only fabulous coffees, but they were also consistent on the cupping table. 

Herbazu is one of our favorite farms. Owned by third generation coffee farming siblings, and managed by brother Antonio Barrantes Zuniga, a humble man who started working in his grandfather's coffee farm at the age of 14. The name Herbazu is short for Hermanos (brothers) Barrantes Zuniga (family name). Herbazu is one of eight farms owned by the family in the West Valley Region of Costa Rica. 

They were one of the first farms in Costa Rica to have their own micro mill to process the wet coffees (purchased in 2000) in order to keep the quality of the coffee very high. Since that time, the micro mill process on individual coffee farms has become the recognized standard for producing high quality coffee, but Antonio's team was an early adopter. Having a micro mill on site allows the coffees from each days picking to be processed immediately. Without it, coffees may wait days or even weeks to travel to larger mills for processing.  

Meet Farm Owners, Antonio and Arnaldo of Herbazu:

  Video Credit: Brett Renville