Costa Rica Santa Teresa White Honey

About the Coffee

Roger Ureña came to coffee farming not through inheritance but by choice. He bought land, started growing coffee, and built the Santa Teresa micro-mill himself. Now he farms alongside his son Alex across ten farms in Santa Maria de Dota, Tarrazu, one of Costa Rica's most respected growing regions. Finca Santa Teresa sits at 2,000 meters above sea level, which puts it among the highest-elevation farms in the country.

That elevation matters more than it might seem. Most Costa Rican farms harvest their cherries and truck them down to lower-elevation mills for processing. The Ureñas do the opposite: cherries come up to Santa Teresa. At 2,000 meters, temperatures are cooler and the gap between daytime highs and nighttime lows is much wider. This slows everything down, from cherry maturation to fermentation to drying, and that slower pace tends to produce more developed, complex coffee. The Ureñas have built out African drying beds to support their experiments with new varieties and processing methods, and they regularly place in the top 10 at the Cup of Excellence competition in Costa Rica.

This lot is processed as white honey. After the cherries are handpicked at peak ripeness, Roger runs them through a mechanical demucilager, which removes most but not all of the mucilage (the sticky fruit flesh surrounding the seed). White honey means the least mucilage is left on compared to yellow, red, or black honey levels. As the coffee dries, the remaining sugars in that thin layer interact with the air and heat over time, creating a sticky, honey-like coating on the parchment. The variety is 100% Caturra, grown and milled entirely on-site at Santa Teresa.

About Detour

Detour started in 2009 out of a back alleyway in Dundas, Ontario. The founders were drawn to coffee because it was genuinely fun, and that framing has stayed consistent since day one. Their sourcing philosophy centers on three things: relationships with the people growing the coffee, traceability through the supply chain, and quality in the final product.

Detour roasts in small batches on a Loring Coffee Roaster, which uses convection heat rather than direct flame. The goal is to highlight what's already in the coffee, including its origin character, variety, and processing, rather than push it toward a house style. They aim for clean, sweet, and balanced roast profiles with flavors that are straightforward to extract at home.