Plum Runner

The story of Macho and Kevin is one of resurgence. Here's how it goes.

Fifteen years ago, Gelbert Naranjo was certain his family's farm could make extraordinary coffee. The terroir was right, the conditions were right. What they didn't have was a mill, and he could not convince his dad to spend the money on one. So Gelbert took his own savings, borrowed some money and went and bought every piece of processing equipment they needed without telling him, brought it home and presented it to his father. "Here dad, now there is no risk. Let's do this."

In 2011, Macho and Gelbert processed their own coffee for the first time.

Quick guide to the names, because they've changed on our bags over the years. Macho is Efraín, the dad, and he runs the farms. Gelbert is the son who started the mill. Kevin is the son who runs it now. You've had this coffee from us as Macho & Gelbert, then Macho Naranjo, and now Macho & Kevin.

Santa Rosa, in Tarrazú, is full of potential. The elevation is high, the weather encourages slow maturation and even drying, and most of the farms are working with young, healthy trees. The hard part is turning all of that into a coffee that is good every single year, and that is where the Naranjos separated themselves from the pack.

I first visited in December of 2012 and left completely fired up. Gelbert cups everything he makes, looking for clues about what is working in the field and what is working at the mill. He is relentless about getting better, which is the quality I look hardest for in a producer and find the least often. Over their first six years we worked together on drying this coffee in the shade, stretching it from the usual seven days out to nearly twenty.

In 2015 they did something I still tell other producers about. Most good producers pay a small premium over the national minimum wage. Macho and Gelbert went to 35% above it, and added a weekly prize for the picker whose lots came in with the fewest defects. Better coffee and happier pickers, both out of one idea.

For years, Santa Rosa 1900 was my favourite coffee in Costa Rica. It consistently obliterated most other coffees on the cupping table.

Then in 2019 Gelbert left the farm to pursue other things. I was gutted. Kevin stepped in with enormous shoes to fill, working alongside his dad, and that first year I could taste the gap. Gelbert’s hands and attention to detail were stamped all over the coffee.

Macho's coffee plans never wavered. Those trees have always looked immaculate. And over the last few years Kevin has quietly tightened every protocol, at the farm and at the mill, and the coffee has come all the way back. Better, even. The classic Santa Rosa juiciness is there, the one I fell for years ago, but now there's more complexity around it, tea notes and a long sweet finish. I told Kevin exactly that. He was thrilled.

This lot is from Finca Macho, the family's best farm. The cherries oxidize for about 24 hours, then get partially de-mucilaged, then go onto shaded raised beds for nearly twenty days. The shade matters more than it sounds like it should. Dry this style of coffee in the sun and you damage the parchment, which gives you uneven drying, which shortens the life of the green coffee long before anybody gets to roast it.

A farmer put in the work and we can all taste it. I celebrate that, because it doesn't always go that way.