Women in Coffee: El Salvador

When invited to go on the Women in Coffee Tour to El Salvador in January, I was excited at the opportunity, but then began to wonder, “what about coffee in El Salvador?” But, it was a trip none-the-less, and it was January in Minnesota, and there was a great group of women that I was excited about getting to know. Not only did I learn a lot about the history of coffee in Salvador, I learned to admire the country and the people, and I made a lot of excellent connections.

For those of you as clueless about El Salvador as I was before committing to this trip, I’ll share a little background information. Salvador is the smallest, and most densely-populated country in Central America, and the only country without both a Pacific and Caribbean coast. The country borders Guatemala to the west, Honduras to the north, Nicaragua to the east. It has the most volcanoes of any Central American country and has a mostly mountainous terrain, which gives it ideal growing conditions for coffee. There are five main growing regions in Salvador, of which we visited two: Apaneca-Llamatepec Mountain Range (Santa Ana Volcano is highest peak), and the Central Belt (San Salvador Volcano is highest peak).

In the 1970s, El Salvador was rated as the forth largest coffee exporting country, at 3.5 million bags. The decade of the 80s, though, brought Salvador’s production to a crawl, from which they are only now beginning to recover. A twelve year civil war, where some 75,000 people were killed, ended in 1992. During the decade of the 80s, an estimated 300,000 people fled the country, including many coffee landholders. This resulted in an abandonment of the land and the coffee plants. The abandonment of the land in the 80s has helped Salvador to create a name for itself in the Specialty Coffee industry today, as it is home to many heirloom varietals, including the sought-after Bourbon, Pacas and Pacamara (natural mutations of Bourbon).

We were able to participate in several cuppings while on tour and I found Salvadoran coffees to be a hidden gem, and quite different from other Central American coffees. This is due primarily to the main varietal, Bourbon, produced in the country. These coffees, overall, were very complex with hints of chocolate, vanilla, acidic fruits, and an excellent body detected in most samples. I was very impressed with the coffee and am pleased to announce that we have purchased a box of FTO
Salvadors for this year, and look forward to carrying more coffees from this origin next year.

Okay, now, after the praise of Salvadoran coffee, I must also share my concerns. It is difficult to foresee how Salvadoran coffee will carve out its niche in the coffee market of today. Will it once again become a top-producing country? They do have the quality to do so, but there were a few things that I noticed while there that will be interesting to follow in the coming years. One, there is very little organic coffee there. What concerned me is the overall lack of desire to produce organic and acknowledgement that organic coffees are in ever-increasing demand in the specialty coffee industry. Of course, there are exceptions (our FTOs that are afloat, amongst others), but I learned that less than five percent of coffee grown in Salvador is organic. The aforementioned may be a result of the fact that they are a reemerging producer in the specialty market and maybe they will come around (I suspect they will). I did have several conversations with both producers and coop managers about the organic issue and I learned that many have the misconception that, in their conversion to organic, they will have a 60-75% crop reduction for several years. Now, I’ve heard figures that hover around a 20% decline (difficult to find solid figures on this) and assume that this is more the case. Plus, I’ve heard of production increasing from going organic. It’s all dependent, I suppose, but I have a notion that producers would not be converting to organic if they were not making money at it. Second concern: their milling system. Salvador operates, for the most part, on a system of larger, regional mills. I think that the absence of smaller wet mills will limit Salvador’s production of fancy ‘boutique’ coffees, which are also becoming more and more popular in our industry. With these larger mills, it is very difficult to keep different lots of coffee separate, reducing the traceability that so many of us look for.

Luckily, having traveled to this origin, I met many of the exceptions to the above-mentioned concerns. We are excited to continue to make these connections, which will allow us to bring in new and exciting coffees. Consider trying the FTO Salvador that we have for this year, and look forward to an expanded selection of Salvadoran coffees in the coming years.

—Emily Naber (Emily@cafeimports.com).