[Sorry for the delay in the El Salvador travel reports. I got back, and the coffee market went nuts! Back on track, and 2 more El Sal updates to go!]

Okay, gushing over what one does for a job is not cool, for all those out there that can’t stand their jobs, but damn this is a cool job, at times, can’t help saying it.

Woke up early this morning to meet Aida from Finca Kilimanjaro. Our first let down, however, was that our friend, Andrew, got shafted by the man, actually, the man in this case was United Airlines, and got stuck stateside. Good news is that Andrew made a later flight, bad news, he missed today’s trip.

Well, George and I forged on with Aida, and went west to Santa Ana region of El Salvador to visit Finca Alpes, Finca Kilimanjaro, and Los Cruxes, the mill where her coffee, along with others, gets milled.

What did I learn today? Well, say agovio method of production, where the coffee plant is bent other, allowing one tree to have lots of branches. Is this good for the cup, or bad, or indifferent? I don’t know yet, but it was the secret of how El Salvador was the largest producer of coffee per hectare a few decades ago, and seems to be a uniquely El Salvadorian coffee “thing.”

What else did I learn, well, Pacamara have monstrously large beans, which I’ve seen many times in the green. SL 28, which is the Kenyan strain of coffee looks like an “M&M” cherry to quote Aida. That bourbon comes in red, yellow, and orange varietals. The orange was new to me. It looks sort of peachy like. I’d guess that’s it’s a spontaneous mutation of red and yellow, but I studied Chinese in college, so you can form our own opinion here.

We also saw some of the wind damage that recently damaged so many coffee trees. Also, visted Finca Santa Rita, and saw that the volcanic explosion took out its crop for the last two years.

Right now trying to figure out how to read my waypoints on the new GPS that I bought.
Well, that’s not working out too well, but also to note. Meet Jose Antonia Salaverria of Jasal, who owns Santa Rita and Los Cruxes.

Tomorrow up north to Chalatenango region, and visiting Mr. Ochoa and his farm.

Regards,

Jason