Coffee Club Exclusive: Enrique Navarro / Costa Rica

about Enrique Navarro, Jr.

Enrique was our first growing partner. It all started with him sleeping on our couch in Seattle for a summer while he took English classes and taught us about how much care and detail goes into coffee before it ever leaves origin. Together we immersed ourselves in profile roasting and cupping, meeting customers, and checking off his bucket-list item of seeing Guns N’ Roses live.

For him, being included in the marketing of his own coffee had a profound impact: “When I won Cup of Excellence in 2014... I thought I had reached the summit of coffee. But soon I realized that I wanted something more. I wanted to know who was really on the other side of our hard work. Onda is the first partner I’ve had with this level of authenticity in their vision for connecting producers and consumers.”

The Navarro family has been in coffee for generations. Enrique Navarro, Sr. (Enrique's dad) and Giselle Navarro first met as coffee pickers. Enrique Navarro, Sr. became the general manager of a large coffee estate, and ten years ago they purchased their own land in Santa María, Costa Rica. Their farm is called Estate Monte Copey.

Enrique Navarro, Jr. has played his own role in the family business by shifting the farm from commodity to high-quality, specialty coffee. And this was no small feat -- over the last seven years, the Navarros have overhauled nearly all farming practices.

They planted the best coffee varieties. They hired workers to help them hand pick the coffee cherries at their peak ripeness (indicated by the cherry’s deep red color). They even installed their own micromill so they could control how the coffee was processed, going from cherries to the green coffee “beans” that are eventually roasted and enjoyed by coffee drinkers around the world.

Enrique and his family analyzed every factor (altitude, climate, varietals, shade, soils) to see which created the absolute best coffee. This scientific approach has allowed them to improve quality, year after year, always yielding a better cup for the end consumer.