Hacienda Copey is a high-elevation estate in the Tarrazú, Los Santos district of Costa Rica, founded in 2011 with a simple but demanding aim: to produce some of the country’s most precise, high-quality speciality coffees. The farm sits between roughly 1,840 and 2,195 metres above sea level in a rare microclimate - cool temperatures, strong day–night swings, and a dense, biodiverse ecosystem that feels closer to cloud forest than to a typical coffee plantation.
Today, Hacienda Copey is a joint project between a Costa Rican agri-enterprise and Japanese electronics manufacturer Daito Giken. Daito Giken began developing a coffee-brewing machine in Japan in 2015 and quickly realised that even the most advanced device is limited by the quality of the coffee you put into it.
That insight sent their team touring farms across Central America, including Panama, in search of a terroir that could consistently deliver competition-level cups. They eventually arrived at Hacienda Copey - already building a reputation in the Cup of Excellence - and were convinced by its fertile soils, sharp temperature gradients, and distinctive microclimate that this was where they should plant roots.
Since taking ownership, Daito Giken has built a tight, quality-focused team of around twenty-five people. The operation is led by an agricultural engineer and experienced farm manager, supported by seasonal pickers who return each year to carry out a strict harvest protocol centred on ripeness and careful selection. The farm’s culture is heavily shaped by the Japanese idea of kodawari — a kind of obsessive commitment to refinement — visible in the way they continually test and adjust agronomy, processing, and drying rather than settling into a fixed recipe.
The core of Hacienda Copey’s identity is its Gesha. The estate focuses on varieties that fit Costa Rica’s high-altitude conditions — Gesha at the centre, supported by Red and Yellow Catuaí, and Villalobos — and matches each variety to specific plots. Among these, ITADAKI, TAKARA, and DON KS form a trio of high plots that have become modern competition references.
TAKARA, where our lot comes from, sits between ITADAKI and DON KS at 1,950 to 2,040 masl, bordered by ancient natural forest and abundant native shade trees. The name comes from the Japanese word takara, “treasure” or “jewel”, and the plot is treated accordingly: a lush, green pocket with uncommon vegetation (including old ferns), plenty of sunlight, and a ridgeline that creates a natural mountain breezeway. Cherries grown here tend to show pronounced fruity sweetness, high clarity, and a smooth, silky texture - a calm, structured profile that fits Gesha perfectly.
Quality is managed end-to-end. Each plot is picked in multiple passes to capture only fully ripe cherries; sorting is repeated several times by hand and by density before processing. The mill, built on the farm, allows them to control everything from traditional washed and honey lots to more experimental anaerobic approaches, always with the same intention: to express the character of a specific plot as clearly as possible. Coffees are dried slowly on African beds and in greenhouses, then hulled, sorted (screen, gravity, and colour), hand-checked again, and stored in GrainPro or vacuum in a temperature-controlled warehouse.
Hacienda Copey’s work has been repeatedly recognised on the competition stage. They are a two-time 1st Place winner of the Costa Rica Cup of Excellence and have placed in the top ranks regularly since 2017, with their Gesha terroirs becoming a fixture at the upper end of the tables.
For us at Glass, this is the first year we have purchased from Hacienda Copey. We first tasted their coffees on a pre-auction cupping table in 2023, where the consistency and quality across their Geshas - around eighteen different lots - still stands as possibly the best single-farm cupping we have ever experienced. This year, we requested samples and selected this TAKARA Gesha as our first release. The hope is simple: to build a long-term relationship with Hacienda Copey and, over time, to showcase more of these meticulously grown Geshas to our community.
