EL SALVADOR quince ∙ caramel ∙ cashew
Two neighbours, a unique micro
region, high-end processing methods and the long-term relationship of our supplier was the reason we marked Hugo Barrera’s coffee to
buy on a blind cupping as the best coffee on the table.
T
he name of this coffee does not refer to the popular Spanish song, but to the coffee grown on the farm of Hugo Barrera, a small farmer in El Salvador. We are grateful to our supplier for maintaining the good, long-term business relationship with coffee growers like Jose Antonio Salaverria and his two sons Andres and Jose Antonio Junior. The family is managing several purchased or inherited farms located on slopes of Santa Ana volcano. Although they had always been quality oriented, the family could further improve the quality of their coffee by implementing the farm development program devised by our supplier. Part of this initiative was to choose the most promising sections of their farms and pay special attention to the growing, the harvest and the processing of the coffee beans. Thus they established small-sized , distinguished growing plots at the altitude of 1350-1750 metres, including San Felipe, Guadalupe, San Francisco, El Cipresal, La Illusion, Buena Vista and La Macarena.
As Jose Antonio runs his own processing station, the Las Cruces, his neighbours are always happy to entrust him with the task of processing their coffee as well. This is exactly what Hugo Barrera did. But not only because Jose Antonio, the respected farmer, was his good friend, but also because the expertise and work at Las Cruces is so professional and the standards are so high that most other processing stations should follow its example. La Macarena lies relatively low, at the altitude of 1250 metres. The Bourbon and Pacas varieties grown in the rich volcanic soil are wet-processed right upon harvesting. The beans are shade dried for 8-12 days until the moisture content of the beans becomes ideal.
Our coffees taste the best when extracted with water of the proper hardness* range. In order to highlight the best flavour of our roasts we recommend having 5 to 10 days of resting period after roasting, but consume within two weeks of opening. Enjoy!
Our supplier had so much trust in Hugo Barrera and Jose Antonio that in 2012 he decided to purchase all the coffee grown by them for many years in advance. He is sure that the success is guaranteed by the motivated farmers and the intensive, reliable cooperation between all parties, including the roastery. * Total hardness: 50 –175 ppm CaCO3 (2.9–9.8 °d), ppm CaCO3 (2.2–4.2 °d), pH: 6.5-8.0.
alkalinity/buffer: 40 –75 (The SCAE Water Chart)
photo by the Café Nordic Imports Approach
LA MACARENA