Costa Rica, La Pastora 12oz Coffee

Will Shurtz, Marco Suarez, and David Baker put their heads together to open Methodical Coffee's first cafe in downtown Greenville, South Carolina, in 2015, and have since expanded to open further locations around Greenville and in Columbia. Describing themselves as "coffee nerds, not coffee snobs," the three each play distinct roles — with Will personally overseeing production and roasting beans from Africa, Central America, and South America in small batches, Marco handling brand design, and David managing operations. Everything they do follows what they call their company's Methodista values: being mindful, personal, creative, tenacious, and grateful.

Methodical's La Pastora is harvested by CoopeTarrazú, a cooperative in Costa Rica's Tarrazú canton dedicated to sustainable, quality coffee production and community well-being. Notes of almond, gingersnap, and plum can be detected in these washed process beans, which go through machines that remove the skin and most of the fruit of the coffee cherry shortly after harvesting. The remains are then soaked to ferment and remove any fruit left behind before drying the beans. The washed process allows the bean's origin flavor to come through clearly, in this case allowing for a quality taste of the Costa Rican highlands. Methodical recommends the pour over and espresso methods for brewing its blends.