It would seem logical that the smallest Central American coffee-growing country would produce microlots, but historically, much of the coffee was blended and sold to mills, without much lot differentiation and separation. The rise of specialty coffee in El Salvador has inspired many producers to start to identify and isolate individual varieties, and to experiment with sorting and processing, as a way of attracting buyers and getting higher prices, but access to those resources can still be difficult for smaller growers.
For the past few years, Café Imports green buyer Piero Cristiani—who is from El Salvador, and whose mother has a long history in coffee there—has embarked on a project designed to identify, reward, and bring to market the exceptional results of the hard, innovative work that producers are increasingly interested in doing here.
Focusing on the region of Chalatenango, Piero has partnered with a cupper and a local mill to buy small, select microlots from producers—some separated by variety, some by process, and some by both. We are buying the coffee in parchment and doing the ruling and final sorting and bagging ourselves, which allows for more quality control as well as the ability to package some of these very special small lots in custom 35-kilo Pequeños bags, to create more widespread access to these coffees to roasters.
José Ovidio Flores purchased his farm in 2005, when it was just a 50-cuerda parcel. He has spent the following decade-plus planting Caturra and Bourbon and expanding the area little by little by buying farmland from his neighbors. He grows coffee on about 95 percent of his 10 manzanas of land, and uses the remaining area for fruit-bearing trees like lemon.
He processes his coffees both Washed and Honey: This is a Washed lot from the farm Finca Peña Oscura. Coffee is picked ripe, depulped and fermented dry for 12–16 hours, before being washed and dried on patios, which typically takes about two weeks.
Despite the growth to the size of his farm, José's annual production is still between 60–70 quintales, very small. Like most producers in this area of El Salvador, he says that he has had to deal with some coffee-leaf rust, but it is improving.
We are proud to offer these micro-microlots, and can’t wait for you and your customers to experience the delicious stuff that comes in these small packages.
For more information about coffee production in El Salvador, visit our El Salvador Origin Page.
