Meet Alex Ureña: Coffee Producer in Los Santos, Tarrazú, Costa Rica

In the spring of 2025, Grant, Jonathan, and I spent close to a week in Costa Rica with Perry and the team from Selva Coffee visiting farms in the Tarrazú region. One of those days we spent with Alex Ureña, touring his family's operation at Santa Teresa 2000 in the Los Santos area of Tarrazú. We also got to meet his father Roger briefly during the trip. This wasn't just a son doing his dad's job, this was a son who had grown to love an industry that his dad was also a part of.

Up the Mountain

We met Alex near the base of the mountain and talked for a while about the farm, what he was doing, and his dad's work before heading up to the mill. On the drive up, we passed a street vendor selling paletas on the road and Alex got really excited and pulled over. He hopped out and bought us these homemade popsicles wrapped in plastic, flavors you'd never see in the States. Jonathan got an Irish cream one. Alex told us he's been eating them since he was a kid. So we're riding up this mountain eating paletas on the way to the mill.

Santa Teresa 2000 is named for its elevation, over 2,000 meters above sea level, and as far as I can tell it's the highest micro-mill in the country. When we got up there and started walking through the facility, everything was clean, organized, and clearly intentional. It was the nicest looking mill we saw in all of Costa Rica. You could tell he was putting together coffees that were going to compete at the highest level.

Walking the Mill

He makes yellow honey, red honey, and white honey up there, and he's tried black honey but the sun at that elevation hits too directly for it to work. At 2,100 meters, the nights get cold, which naturally slows fermentation down and gives the coffee a longer, more controlled oxidation during processing. Alex believes the elevation and the climate variation are a big part of why their coffees are so exceptional, and he might not be wrong. But walking through that mill, our observation was that the cleanliness and attention to detail had just as much to do with it.

Coming Down the Mountain

On the way back down, Alex drove fast. It was clear he'd done that drive thousands of times. Everyone with us said his father Roger flies down the same road probably twice as fast.

Why Alex

We first sourced a Santa Teresa 2000 coffee through Selva a couple of years ago, and it ended up being one of our favorite coffees we had in the shop that entire year. We've offered multiple honeys from them since then, including a Bourbon, and this year we have two coming in, an SL-28 and an Ethiopian heirloom variety. Alex just won first place in the Honey and Natural division at the 2026 Costa Rica Cup of Excellence with a Gesha from Finca Las Nubes, scoring a 91.06 and earning the Presidential Award. His father Roger won first place in the washed category in 2024. The family has placed every year they've competed. We source Alex's coffee through Selva Coffee, and you should expect to see his coffees on our shelves for many years to come.

Santa Teresa 2000

Alex and his father Roger manage around 20 small farms in the Los Santos area of Tarrazú, with Finca Santa Teresa as the main property. The farms sit between 1,900 and 2,100 meters and grow Catuaí, Gesha, SL-28, Sudan Rume, Villalobos, Casiopea, Typica, Pacamara, and other varieties. Roger started the family's coffee operation decades ago, working his way from building coffee nurseries at 15 years old to constructing the Santa Teresa 2000 mill in 2015. The farm participates in Costa Rica's Ecological Blue Flag Program and is certified Carbon Neutral. Most of the land on the main property is protected forest, with about 10 of the 60 hectares planted in coffee.