The first version of the Liliana project started in June 2019, to celebrate the arrival of our Founders’s Baby Girl, Liliana. Dario was fortunate enough to import a nanolot (just 20kgs!) of one of the best Geisha varietals he had ever tasted. The coffee was from farmer, and our friend, Alejo Castro from Costa Rica.
Today, Alejo and Dario are great friends and we purchase a lot more than 20kgs from Volcan Azul each harvest. Liliana has a brother, Luca, and Alejo has a daughter, Ella. The Liliana Project has evolved into Project Next Gen. A fun, quality focused annual release highlighting our shared focus on sustainability and building something for generations to come. Alejo knows all about this, being a 6th Generation coffee farmer!
Dario has just been in Costa Rica visiting Alejo and the exact same Geisha plantation in which this coffee was grown. When tasting the almost purple ripe cherries directly from the trees you can understand why Alejo decided to process this Geisha lot using natural anaerobic fermentation. He wanted to get as much of the fruit flavour into your cup as possible! This slow, temperature controlled fermentation and then low temperature drying of this coffee led to incredible flavour, complexity and texture. Quantity is limited and quality is high :). bluebirdcoffeeroastery.co.za
