PESTILENCE SHALL COME, Costa Rica

Strawberry, Nougat, Milk Chocolate

An offering shaped by a legend of his region. José Antonio 'Toño' Barrantes Zuñiga is one of six producers worldwide named a Legend of Excellence by the Alliance of Coffee Excellence. The title recognises winning entries across multiple competition years, alongside the producer's contribution to coffee education, environmental practice, and local industry. It is held by Toño through three decades of micro-mill craft in Costa Rica's West Valley, where he and his family have stood among the original architects of the country's specialty movement.

His lineage is the third generation working this land. His grandfather, Don Leoncio, was the one who turned the family ground from livestock pasture to coffee. Toño inherited the final plot under his grandfather's instruction and renamed the farm in his name. The land sits within Lourdes de Naranjo, a terroir so decorated that four farms within a single km² have taken first place at the Cup of Excellence. Volcanic soil from Poás Volcano feeds the ground beneath. The microclimate, the altitude, and the slow ordering of the seasons combine to form one of Costa Rica's most coveted growing conditions.

Finca Herbazu sits at 1,500 MASL in Lourdes de Naranjo, held by seven siblings of the Barrantes Zuñiga family. The land is sandy, volcanic beneath, shaded by native poró and guaba. The farm is ordered without herbicides or insecticides. Of the twelve hectares under their care, two are bound as natural reserve, kept as forest. The mill itself was built by Toño and his siblings around the year 2000, in response to low coffee prices in the wider market. By processing their own coffee they retained control of quality and added value to their product. The name Herbazu is drawn from theirs: Hermanos Barrantes Zuñiga, the brothers and sisters Barrantes Zuñiga. They were among the first in Costa Rica to take this path. Microlots did not yet exist as a category. Specialty coffee in Central America had not yet been named. The financial weight of going alone fell on the family, and the work has since shaped how a generation of Costa Rican producers approach quality control and sorting.

Toño's record at the Cup of Excellence stretches back to 2007, the first year of the Costa Rican competition. He has placed every year since. In 2015, his SL28 lot, the first production from a small experimental plot, took first place at 91.46 points. They carried it to Tokyo in 2007 and won the World Barista Championship with it. Producers across Costa Rica look to Toño as a mentor figure. He continues to advise neighbouring farms, including others that have since taken Cup of Excellence titles of their own.

Etiopia 47 is an heirloom carried out of Ethiopia and held in Costa Rican seed banks, classified by local research institutes as an isolated landrace. Its origin in Costa Rica is not fully documented. What is known is that Toño planted a small stock of trees on his land and has brought the plot slowly into yield, harvest by harvest. The variety is rare in cultivation and distinct in profile, carrying a herbal, almost eucalyptal signature that sets it apart from the Caturra, Villa Sarchi, and Catuai that define the West Valley.

The lot is processed as a red honey. A substantial layer of mucilage is left on the seed as it moves to the drying beds, where it is turned through controlled exposure until stable. The method builds sweetness and density into the cup while preserving the varietal's character beneath. What carries through is weight, structure, and the herbal lift specific to Etiopia 47.