impressive body, convincing sweetness, and contrasting low toned cup flavors. Brown sugar, molasses, chocolate-covered nut, creamy mouthfeel.
This lot of honey processed Pacas cultivar is a blend of coffees from a small producer group of 25 farmers in Santa Ana and Chalatenango. This comes to us by way of an export operation in Metepán, a project spearheaded by Alejandro Valiente who works with a handful of small producers in these regions. A lot of labor goes into processing small batches from each contributing farmer separately in order to build lot separations according to different quality tiers. Farms are 2-4 hectares on average and span a moderate altitude range of 1250 to 1400 meters above sea level.
Honey process is very common in Central America. After cherries’ skin are removed mechanically, beans together with the sticky mucilage are put on drying bed. First part of removing cherry skin is similar to washed process. The drying with fruit mucilage is similar to natural process which parchment are covered by another layer of dried fruit. That’s why we will refer the honey process as somewhere in between washed and natural. Yellow honey is the most standard way of honey process which about half of the mucilage are left on the seeds when drying.
It should also be mentioned that Valiente’s mill is powered from renewable energy, a lofty goal that he was able to achieve 2 years ago. Alejandro undertook a major project to move his entire milling operation to running off of 100% renewable energy. Unfortunately, none of this was plug and play, and Alejandro and his team had to customize much of the equipment needed (solar panels/battery banks/wind turbines, etc) to power their wet and dry mills, cupping lab, coffee warehouse and office area.
- Origin: El Salvador
- Region: Santa Ana and Chalatenango
- Producer: Alejandro Valiente
- Altitude: 1250-1400 m
- Cultivars: Pacas
- Processing: Honey process
- Sourcing: Sweet Maria’s