The Costa Rican Coffee Institute (ICAFE) has drawn up boundaries for the "Tarrazu," region, regulating for the first time coffee that wishes to use the name of the famed bean which grades "strictly hard" in Costa Rica's coffee classification system.
The naming of the Tarrazu region marks the first attempt in Costa Rica to specify borders in a coffee growing area, a process Guatemala and Ethiopia have also been working on, in the hopes of appealing to roasters looking to regionalize coffees the way winemakers identify their wines.
Seated in the highlands that tower over the south of the Central Valleys, the prized Tarrazu region has in the past been a victim of usurpers from other parts of the country using its name on coffees not from the region.
In the 1990's, officials here estimated the country exported double the "Tarrazu" coffee the region produced in some harvests.
The new rules require coffee be grown at least 1,200 meters above sea level and meet certain cupping standards, but farmers in the heart of the region -- known as Dota and Leon Cortes -- are outraged that farms in several municipalities and a neighboring province are included in the ICAFE definition of Tarrazu.
"The coffee institute expanded the zone to San Antonio de Desamparados and the coffee there is totally different from this zone," said an angry Roque Mata, head of the local association that had been developing its own regional denomination.
"This is going to legitimize a great number of people who have no right to the name Tarrazu. ICAFE thinks Tarrazu is a region and we believe it is a locality."
Mata said ICAFE, which oversees the local industry, caved in to pressure from big companies that receive cherries but do not process coffee in the region. Farmers in the core region say true Tarrazu coffee should be processed locally.
ICAFE executive director Ronald Peters denies the charge, noting the cupping and altitude regulations.
While origin denominations are new to the coffee industry and still rarely used, the matter is of great concern to farmers in the Tarrazu area, who sell their coffee primarily to Starbucks and other specialty coffee roasters.
Some farms have even developed farm-specific brands for high-end roasters, although the mainstream market seems blase at best about the concept.
"For the moment there is no pressure (from the market), but we have to look for differentiations," Peters said.
The threat of a lawsuit from the growers has ICAFE undaunted. Peters said the institute is beginning delineation of a second region, Orrosi, this year, although that region is much smaller and the process is not expected to be as controversial.
Coffee region denominations caused controversy in Ethiopia last year when the government accused Starbucks of attempting to block the African country from obtaining trademarks for its best known beans -- Sidamo and Harrar. The dispute was resolved in June.
If the Costa Rican government accepts ICAFE's definition of Tarrazu, as expected, Roque Mata says a court challenge will take place.
"There is complete indignation with ICAFE here," he said. "We are losing our identity."