Quality Control Excellence: Ensuring Every Bean Meets Our Standards
Buenos Dias Everyone!
Our roots run deep in the fertile soil of Hacienda Iluminada, and our heritage guides our mission. We believe we can produce high-quality specialty coffee while maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Our continuous search for improving Puerto Rican coffee, from cupping to grading, shows how much we believe in what we do.
Through our farm, we are committed to leading the coffee industry by setting the example, and proving that we can leave a positive footprint on this earth. This is how we ensure every single coffee bean exceeds expectations, one coffee cherry at a time.
-If it’s good for EARTH it’s GOOD for YOU
Quality Assessment Processes
Our commitment to excellence is a science-driven process. We see every single coffee bean as a commitment to quality. Through dedicated quality assessment, we ensure that what you taste is nothing short of excellence.
Step-by-step: Quality Assessment
Grading: We start by physically inspecting our green coffee beans, looking for any visible defects.
Cupping: Once the coffee beans are roasted, our trained tasters perform a daily cupping session.
They first smell the dry grounds, and again after hot water is added, to evaluate the fragrance.
After the coffee cools, they slurp it to taste every part of the flavor profile.
The Story: Pursuit of Excellence
Our dedication to quality assessment is a direct commitment to our team and community. By having our team of experts evaluate every batch, we ensure our coffee consistently meets and exceeds specialty coffee standards. This relentless pursuit of excellence ensures the magic of every cup of specialty Puerto Rican coffee you drink.
Regenerative Farming & The Human Element
Soil is a living organism. If you keep taking from it without giving anything back, it will eventually become infertile. That’s why we use regenerative farming to improve the health of our soil year after year. It's a totally hands-on process carried out by our dedicated team, and it’s all about collaborating with nature.
Step-by-Step: Farming with a Human Touch
Building Steps: Our farm is on a steep mountain, so we use a technique called terracing. It's like building giant steps on the hillside to prevent the soil from washing away when it rains. This keeps our fertile soil right where we need it.
The Green Blanket: We also use cover cropping. This means we plant low-growing plants like clover in between our coffee rows. These plants act as a living blanket, protecting the soil from the sun and adding a natural fertilizer. The clover pulls nitrogen from the air and puts it back into the soil, giving our coffee plants the nutrients they need to thrive, all without any chemicals.
A Farmer's Eye: Finally, our team hand-pick every single coffee cherry one by one. This can be a tedious process, but our farmers know exactly which coffee cherries are perfectly ripe.
The Story: Quality You Can Taste
The human hand truly guarantees the highest quality coffee. By only harvesting coffee cherries at its peak ripeness, we ensure every single coffee bean has developed its full sugar content and flavor potential. This level of selective harvesting is why our specialty coffee is so consistently excellent.
Water-Saving Processing
We're committed to saving water and maintaining high quality flavor coffee by using special processes designed to be as efficient as possible.
Step-by-Step: From Cherry to Clean Water
The Tank Method: After we pick the coffee cherries, we take the coffee beans out and put them in big, sealed tanks. This is called anaerobic fermentation, which is a fancy way of saying "fermenting without oxygen." Inside the tank, natural yeasts and bacteria do all the work of breaking down the cherry's sticky pulp without needing a constant flow of water.
The Recycling System: Once that’s done, we run the coffee beans through a "closed-loop" washing system. Think of it like a dishwasher: it uses and reuses the same water for different cycles. We filter and recycle the water we use to wash our coffee beans, using the same water again and again. Any remaining water is filtered to be clean before it's safely returned to the ground.
The Story: A Big Impact
This process makes a huge difference. A typical coffee farm can use over 500 gallons of water, but we've reduced that to a small fraction. This isn't just a win for us; it’s a win for our entire community. Our commitment to water conservation protects the natural rivers and streams in Maricao, ensuring clean water for all local residents and wildlife.
How It Makes Our Coffee Special
Our water-saving methods don’t just help our Earth, but they make our coffee taste better! The anaerobic fermentation process gives our coffee a uniquely clean and sweet flavor profile. Since we don't risk over-fermenting the coffee beans with traditional washing methods, we preserve the natural sugars and acidity, which gives YOU a bright, fresh taste that you won’t find just anywhere else.
From our Farm to Your Cup
The science and hard work on the farm all culminate in our rigorous quality control, which ensures the final product meets the highest specialty coffee standards. This is where we bring it all together.
Step-by-Step: From Grading to Tasting
The Grading Process: First, our coffee goes through an extensive grading process, which is like a physical check-up for every coffee bean. We inspect each one, looking for any tiny defects or imperfections that could affect the taste. Only the perfect coffee beans go through the final step.
The Cupping Session: Next, our trained tasters perform cupping, the professional way to taste coffee. Here’s how it works:
Aroma: We start by smelling the dry grounds, and then the coffee after hot water is added. This helps us evaluate the fragrance, which gives us a preview of the flavor.
Flavor: After the coffee cools, we slurp it from a special spoon. Yes, slurp! It's not rude; it's a technique that sprays the coffee over all your taste buds so you can taste every part of the flavor profile, from its bright acidity to its full body and smooth aftertaste.
The Story: A Community Commitment
Our dedication to quality is a direct commitment to our farming community. Because our coffee beans consistently meet and exceed specialty standards, we can create and sustain jobs all year round. This dedication to excellence allows us to provide a stable livelihood for our team, helping build a more resilient economy within our community
How It Makes Our Coffee Special
Our obsessive focus on quality ensures that every single batch of coffee we roast is perfection. You can trust that the cup of coffee you enjoy is a direct result of our commitment to excellence at every stage, from our hardworking hands of our team to the careful quality checks at the roastery.
Stop waiting! Step into our fields, our roastery, and our story. Tour spots available now! tap on link below
If it’s GOOD for earth, it is GOOD FOR YOU!
The Story: A Quest for a Perfect Score
Our team sees coffee quality as a long-term quest. We've spent years training and studying, committed to having our coffee evaluated using the SCA's 100-point scale. The SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) is the organization that determines what is considered specialty coffee, and their 100-point scale is the tool they use to grade each coffee.
It’s a commitment we have maintained year after year through a diligent focus on every detail. This includes continuous training for our team of tasters, who have honed their palates to uphold SCA standards.
It's a proactive approach to quality, built on years of experience, to guarantee that our coffee is consistently exceptional. Every cup of coffee we serve is a pursuit of ongoing excellence.
A Seed of Hope
Every seed we plant carries with it a powerful promise. Our commitment to quality is a never-ending process, transforming the journey from our farm to your cup into something truly special. We thank every single human who has helped us grow and supported this process since 2014. We would love to extend a personal invitation to tour our farm and create more amazing memories with you!
-We hope to see YOU SOON!
Experience the Best! Visit Puerto Rico’s Premier Coffee Farm!
Come see the Maricao Mountains for yourself. Walk through volcanic soil, listen to the springs that feed the farm, and taste coffee grown with integrity. Whether you’re here for a tour or to take home a bag, Hacienda Iluminada offers a taste of Puerto Rico you’ll never forget.
From our hands on Hacienda Iluminada to your cup, 787 Coffee is on a mission to redefine what it means to drink Puerto Rican coffee.
We grow every single bean ourselves.
We practice real sustainable farming—no greenwashing, just love for the land.
Every sip you take supports local farmers, protects our forests, and keeps our coffee legacy alive for the next generation.
Ready for the trip of a lifetime? Come to Maricao. Walk the fields. Smell the fresh-roasted beans. Feel the heartbeat of Puerto Rico in every single cup.
👉 Ready to taste the tradition? Book your unforgettable Hacienda Iluminada coffee tour today at HaciendaIluminada.com!