Potrero Grande

Potrero Grande is a microregion at the top of Volcan de Santa Ana, between Palo Campana and Buenos Aires. At Potrero they have not planted many hybrids as they have elsewhere (Catimor in Buenos Aires) so the general quality of the cup is top notch. And this year we've seen very consistent ripe picking so we're very excited about this lot.

The Rio Zarco mill has a cherry receiving station in the middle of Potrero Grande, making it easy for farmers to drop off their bags after they're done picking. Here we do an initial screening and all bags are tagged with I.D.s telling us the farm, variety and quality of picking.

 When the bags arrive at the mill, we take samples from each bag and put the results through a computer program which calculates the percentage of ripe cherries as opposed to green, semi-ripe, dry and floating cherries. This way we have an objective standard to measure quality and farmers who have picked well receive a bonus.

Bags with too much green, dry or floaters end up in a generic coffee lot. Those that qualify (less than 3% total green/floaters/dry) go into the daily Potrero Grande lot. And some very special farms are processed separately as Potrero Grande microlots.