La Lia 1900 is the second five-bag microlot we purchased in the 2014-2015 harvest cycle. We first tasted this coffee the year prior, and made a priority to secure it in our buying plan this year.

La Lia is a micromill run by the Ureñas, named after the mother of Luis Alberto. The mill is located at one of their farms, San Lorenzo, but this particular lot of coffee comes from another farm they own, Santa Rosa. It's picked from the very, very top of the farm, 1900 - 2000 meters above sea level (higher elevations have a fairly direct correlation with quality potential).

They built the mill in 2007 in the early years of what our partners at Exclusive Coffees of Costa Rica have termed the "micromill revolution". Under the traditional system, coffee farmers would sell their coffee cherry to a larger mill, which would pay them based off of the commodity coffee price, and their coffee would usually end up blended with that of many other farms. When the coffee price falls and they earn less they're unable to fully invest back into their farms, creating a downward spiral for productivity, quality & viability of coffee as a way to make a living.

In the early 2000's, many producers began building their own small scale mills to process their own coffee. Processing their own coffee allows them to add more value directly, gain access to higher prices and stability. There are now hundreds of micromills across the country. Exclusive Coffees has taken a big role in making this happen, giving producers technical and financial assistance needed to make this transition, then creating market access by connecting them with quality-focused coffee buyers.