We visited El Mirador in 2020 and have been buying their coffee for four years. We love working with producers directly and it has enabled us to find some incredible coffees that return to us year on year. El Mirador is located in the West Valley to the north-west of the capital, San Jose. The farm altitude is around 1500 masl and is located on the southern slopes of two volcanoes. El Mirador is owned by Olman Aguilera, a second-generation coffee producer. His family have been involved in coffee production for several decades. His wife and son are involved in the farm management and as a team, they manage their own farm as well those of several relatives. During the harvest Olman employes a team of pickers who are well trained and responsible for very selective harvesting and varietal separation on the farm. Costa Rica has strict labour laws and coffee pickers on speciality focused farms are always paid at least the legal minimum, often more. For this reason farms like El Mirador attract works from several neighbouring countries as they will be much better paid by traveling to pick coffee on farms in Costa Rica. After drying the coffee is cupped at the lab at La Eva and samples are prepared by our friends at Selva Coffee. Once we've confirmed our order the coffee is milled to removed the exterior fruit and sorted for density and size to ensure only the best quality gets through to the export stage.