Pineapple, cranberries, and sweet cherries all in one cup of coffee? Costa Rica Las Lajas from the OMG Masterpieces collection by Gust Coffee Roasters offers exactly that combination. Its flavor is juicy, intensely fruity, and pleasantly wild, yet it retains its sweetness and rich body. Ripe pineapple adds tropical juiciness to the cup, cranberries provide a more pronounced fruity kick, and sweet cherries round it all out with a full, long finish. The coffee is roasted as an “omni,” so you can bring out its distinctive character whether you’re brewing filter coffee or making an espresso.
This lot comes from the renowned Las Lajas farm in the Sabanilla de Alajuela region of Costa Rica. Behind the farm are Francisca and Oscar Chacón, who have become famous primarily for their innovative approach to coffee processing and their willingness to explore new ways to highlight the coffee’s natural flavor potential. Sarchimor coffee trees grow here at an elevation of approximately 1,500 meters. The combination of local conditions, the producers’ meticulous work, and the farm’s experimental approach results in a coffee with pronounced fruitiness, rich sweetness, and a character that is certainly not to be confused with a typical, conventional profile.
The resulting flavor is the result of the Alma Negra method, which Francisca and Oscar developed themselves at the Las Lajas farm. It is a variation of the black honey processing method, in which the skin is removed from the cherries, but a layer of sweet mucilage remains on the bean. The coffee is then dried slowly in thicker layers on terraces and turned only very infrequently. This creates a continuous crust on the surface, beneath which natural sugars concentrate during controlled drying. It is precisely this limited stirring and prolonged contact with the sweet pulp that foster deeper fruity notes, pronounced sweetness, and a more complex body. The result is a cup that feels explosive, juicy, and exactly as you’d expect from a coffee bearing the OMG Masterpieces label.