Roast Approach: Costa Rica Hacienda Sonora Victoria 14 Natural

Today's coffee that we are going to approach is a fresh crop (2025) from Hacienda Sonora in Costa Rica.  This coffee is the variety Victoria 14, which was developed and cultivated on Hacienda Sonora.  Before I get into the roasting, I'd like to mention a few important notes.  While consulting and organizing the roasting competition, I am not serving in any judging capacity.  My goal for sharing these roasts is the same as any other Roast Approach blog post, to help roasters gain a better understanding of how the coffee behaves in the roaster and presents in the cup.  This is by no means prescriptive for how a light roast should be done for the competition.  I hope this provides some insight for roasters as they plan their own approach to this coffee. 

Arrival QC:

• Arrived 08/27/2025
• Moisture 11.6%
• Density 1.16g/ml
• Farm Altitude: 1300 masl 

The Coffee:

This coffee was grown in the Central Valley region of Costa Rica at an elevation of around 1300 m.a.s.l.  The coffee is slowly dried over a period of 12 days, with the seed remaining in the fruit.  Hacienda Sonora grows more than 20 different varieties on their farm.  

The Roaster:

For these roasts, I'll be using a Proaster 1.5 kilo drum roaster hooked up to natural gas.  Batch size is 400g, approximately 35% of roaster capacity.  I've used a small batch size on this roaster to get closer to mimicking the gas power that you might find on a larger production roaster.  It must always be mentioned that each roaster is different.  The type of probe, placement of probe, and batch size will all influence the way in which bean probe temperatures are registered in a roaster.  With that said, don't read too much into the exact temperatures, but look more closely at the theory behind the approach, time spent in different development periods, and rate of rise to get a better idea of how to translate this profile over to your own machine.  

The Goal:

I roasted a series of roasts for this particular coffee and will be sharing with you the one that I felt exhibited the best flavor, balance, and complexity.  Overall, I was looking for big juicy body, fruit forward sweetness, and complex acidity.  In our initial sample roast cupping for this coffee we noted black cherry, spice, milk chocolate, a heavy body and a malic acidity. This coffee was honestly quite tricky to roast.  In my first roast, I noted that the coffee took off sharply with exothermic reaction energy when it reached first crack.  Trying to control this energy in order to get sugar development without roasting it too far in to the realm of bitter characteristics.

Before I get into theory for how I am roasting these coffees, it's probably good for me to mention that I look at roast profile development in a slightly different way than other roasters.  I like to break a roast down into four key "roast phases," which are defined by the chemical reactions that are happening at that time.  You can read more about this methodology in my blog post here.

The Approach:

In this roast, I started with a moderate charge temperature of 390 F.  Airflow was restricted to 40%.  Airflow on my machine is a bit buggy, so I always follow an airflow schedule of increasing airflow by 20% or so right before the beginning of each new phase of the roast.  Roasting this coffee is a bit tricky.  This coffee has a lot going on.

1. It's very dense, so it needs a lot of heat to move it through the endothermic reactions of Maillard and caramelization.  
2. It's a natural, so there is a softness to the bean cell structure that requires a gentle approach during drying to avoid any scorching or tipping.  
3. The coffee quickly enters into exothermic reactions right before first crack, so while you're waiting for first crack (which comes quite late on this coffee) it is already taking off.
   

Navigating all of this can be quite challenging.  I approached the coffee with a moderate heat in the beginning through drying, with an eventual 100% gas application by the time I was heading in to Maillard. Because this coffee needs so much heat to push its way through the endothermic reactions of Maillard, I needed to make sure that I had enough available energy.  Someone once explained drying as being the "launch pad" for Maillard. While no pivotal chemical reactions are happening drying, the amount of energy that you have in the seed at the time Maillard starts will impact the cascade of chemical reactions that you achieve during the Maillard phase.  With this in mind, I wanted to be sure that I had ample heat energy and a strong rate of rise by the time I had reached 305 degrees F.  

This coffee kept chugging along through Maillard and caramelization, despite having full gas going.  I was watching the coffee to see if I needed to slow down the rate of rise, but it maintained an RoR of around 25-22 all the way until first crack.  Typically, I like to gradually reduce my RoR for post-crack development and go from an RoR of about 20 down to an ending RoR of around 8.  Pulling back on the gas too early threatened to stall out my roast, while not pulling back fast enough would cause the coffee to progress rapidly to high temperatures. Keeping controll of this coffee is key.  Don't let your eyes off what it's doing.

The coffee entered first crack late, around 388 degrees.  During the caramelization phase, I made many adjustments to the gas to gradually pull it back.  You can see in the roast curve that the rate of rise begins rise sharply as first crack happens.  This is commonly referred to as a "flick".  In my other roasts, I tried many tactics to mitigate this impact.  If I just reduced gas to 20% or 10%, my RoR continued to grow quickly. In this roast I cut gas completely at around 390 degrees (right after first crack).  This mitigated most of the flick, but the coffee quickly lost momentum.  In another roast I cut the gas, but tried to give it a bump of heat around 395.  It was impossible to get heat back in to the bean once the rate of rise was decreasing.  I believe if one was trying to take this into a medium or dark roast, I would reduce gas to around 20% earlier in caramelization and then keep it very low through post crack development, with a target rate of rise of about 18-14.  

The coffee finished with a total roast time of 7:24.  It had a total post crack development time of 1:02 and ended at 403.3 degrees.  Roast weight loss was 12.88%.  

The Cup:

Aroma - Sweet florals, red fruit, vanilla, toasted coconut, cinnamon spice, ginger

Tasting Notes - Juicy pear, lactic acidity, malic acidity, green apple, pomegranate.  A juicy body and syrupy mouthfeel.

Bringing It Home:

My overall takeaway from roasting this coffee was that it's a lot like driving to the beach on a sunny summer day in Oregon.  The destination is beautiful and everything you hoped it would be, but the drive there is riddled with road work and hazard signs that you need to look out for.  This coffee is a real treat for a roaster who enjoys the challenge of dialing in a coffee.  In my various roasts of this coffee, I found many interesting acidities that came out at different times, complex spices, and a range of berry notes in the background.  I think there is a lot to bring out in this coffee for roasters of all experience levels.

Happy roasting!