Meet Emmanuel Solis: Coffee Producer from Las Margaritas Veintiséis, Costa Rica

Sometimes coffee relationships start in unique ways. In 2024 we started a coffee relationship with a producer in Costa Rica, and I was really excited about where it was going. Then the market changed. A lot of Costa Rican producers lost partnerships they had been counting on. Ours, frankly, got cold feet. He didn't trust we were going to be ready to buy when we said we would, and late in the process he sold the coffees out from under us. I don't blame him. He's got a family to feed and a business to run. Enough coffee shop owners have said they will buy year over year and then either go out of business or go looking for the next cheapest coffee. So late in the game we went back to the drawing board. Thankfully Perry from Selva Coffee is a rock star. He has relationships with producers we don't, and he found Emmanuel Solis.

Las Margaritas Veintiséis in Santa María de Dota

Emmanuel Solis Porras farms Las Margaritas Veintiséis in Santa María de Dota, in Costa Rica's Los Santos region. The farm sits in our favorite area of Costa Rica, Dota country, where cool dry harvest weather and mineral-rich soils have been producing specialty coffee for a long time. Public notes on the farm put the founding in 2016, on land that had been dairy before Emmanuel turned it toward high-quality coffee varieties. The family coffee tradition behind that decision goes back more than a hundred years.

He named the place for coffee work that is personal. Las Margaritas is a farm built around cup quality, not around volume for a cooperative truck. More than half of what is planted there is Geisha. Alongside it he grows Yellow Catuai, Red Catuai, Milenio, SL28, Excelencia, and Bourbon. Processing for the Geishas runs natural, honey, and some washed, depending on what the lot needs. The soil is semi-sandy with medium acidity. Shade comes from banana, avocado, cedar, and other native trees, which also keep biodiversity on the farm instead of stripping it for yield.

The farm avoids insecticides and harmful agrochemicals, uses terracing and composted coffee waste to keep the soil working, and grows other crops alongside the coffee, avocados, peaches, plums, apples, strawberries. That is the kind of place Cup of Excellence lots come from when the year goes right.

Cup of Excellence, 2026

This year it did. In Costa Rica's 2026 Cup of Excellence, Emmanuel Solis Porras took first place in the Experimental category with a Geisha from Las Margaritas Veintiséis that scored 91.06. That is the Alliance for Coffee Excellence result, after the blind cuppings they run every year. Local coverage quoted him saying each harvest carries "un pedacito de nuestra historia," a little piece of our history. At this point, I'm yet to meet Emmanuel, but the score and the ranking are enough to tell you who he is as a producer.

That win is about him and that competition lot. It is not a claim that every bag with his name on it is the Cup of Excellence coffee. It is why, when Perry opened the door, we walked through it.

How we got here, and why it matters

I haven't walked Las Margaritas yet. I haven't cupped across a table from Emmanuel. I plan to get out to Costa Rica soon, next year or the year after, and I can't wait to meet him face to face and see this Cup of Excellence producing farm. Until then, the honest version of our relationship is this: Perry connected us late, after another plan fell apart.

We're starting this year with one of our brown label coffees. When you have the right relationships up and down the supply chain, you can capitalize on those relationships and not lose a step when a producer understandably needs to feed his family more than he needs to trust a distant buyer. That is why coffee shop owners should prioritize relationship coffee. Not a label. The actual work of knowing people, paying when you say you will, and having partners like Perry who can find you a producer you love when the first one can't wait. Because of those relationships, we still have this coffee on the shelf, and we get to start what I hope becomes a longstanding relationship with Emmanuel.

We're not the stars when it comes to coffee. The producers are. Emmanuel Solis is the reason this page exists.