Farm: Finca La Trinidad
Mill: La Chumeca Micromill
Region: San Isidro, León Cortés
Process: Natural
Varietal: Catuai
Altitude: 1700 masl
 
La Chumeca Micromill is owned and operated by Martín Ureña, one of three brothers who have been coffee producers for their entire lives. Martín's "next door" neighbor is his brother Edgar's El Pilon Mircromill. Martín and Edgar have developed a simple, effective, and inexpensive technique to ensure their Naturals always comprise only the very best, ripest cherry: They have rigged two large blue tanks with some piping and fresh water in order to not only do a quick and thorough float sort, but also to divert the damaged and defective beans out of the way using gravity and the force of the water. This method has improved the brothers' quality tremendously since they began producing Naturals in the early 2010s.
 
La Chumeca is an idyllic place, and Martín takes great pride in both the gorgeous view and the perfect coffees. There are 50 drying beds, and since 2018 Martín has also been experimenting with anaerobic-environment fermentation: For certain lots, he places the freshly harvested cherry into sealed distillery tanks that he special-ordered from Korea. After a few days' fermentation in the airtight tanks, he transfers the cherries to the beds to fully dry as Naturals. (He also siphons off the fermented cherry liquid and makes a kind of liquor from it that tastes sweet, funky, and fruity.)