How Did Pacamara Become a Rival to Geisha Within Arabica?

Pacamara is a hybrid created in El Salvador in 1958 by crossing Pacas and Maragogype, two varieties within the arabica species. Its beans are unusually large, similar to elephant beans, but low yield and processing difficulty kept it obscure for about fifty years. In 2007 it took the Cup of Excellence double crown and beat Geisha.

Its lineage explains the traits. Pacas came from a high-yield Bourbon mutation found on Don Alberto Pacas' farm and identified with help from a University of Florida professor in 1956. Maragogype, discovered in 1870 and named after its origin, is a Typica variant whose beans run more than three times the size of ordinary arabica. The initials of the two parent names form Pacamara.

Pacamara is a hybrid variety born in El Salvador in 1958, created by combining two major varieties: Pacas and Maragogype. Although it boasts exceptionally large beans like elephant beans, it remained obscure for half a century due to low yield and processing difficulties, until 2007 when it swept the Cup of Excellence double crown and defeated Geisha, earning the name "Geisha's rival." This article outlines its complex lineage, tumultuous journey, and flavor advantages, and explores whether it surpasses Sidra and Java. Front Street Coffee takes you deep into this legendary variety.

Pacamara is a hybrid variety with a very complex lineage, born in 1958 in the breeding laboratory of the Salvadoran Coffee Research Institute. It is said to be complex because its bloodline comes from two varieties of the Arabica species.

Pacas: "Pacas" is one of these two varieties, belonging to the Bourbon variety. Pacas was initially the name of a Salvadoran coffee farmer—"Don Alberto Pacas." In 1935, this farmer selected high-yield Bourbon plants and moved them to his own farm for cultivation. Then one day in 1956, his "coffee friend" discovered that the Bourbon coffee trees on the farm produced more fruit than other Bourbon coffee trees. Wow, they directly invited a professor from the University of Florida to conduct identification, and it was discovered that it was a genetic mutation of Bourbon! Thus, the variety was named "Pacas" after the farm owner's name.

Maragogype: It is the most well-known variant of Typica and another bloodline source of Pacamara! Because its size is more than three times larger than ordinary Arabica varieties, people gave it the alias "Elephant Bean"! The name Maragogype is taken from its place of origin. It was discovered in 1870. Due to its large size, it often tends to be "burnt outside but raw inside" during roasting, meaning the outside is scorched while the inside is still undercooked. Therefore, when roasting elephant beans, people often use "low heat and slow roasting" to gradually roast them through.

Since Pacamara is a crossbreed of these two varieties, the initials of their respective names were combined to form "Pacamara."

Although Pacamara was born in 1958, it did not immediately embark on the path to the top! Because it did not inherit the high-yield excellent bloodline of Pacas, its yield is much lower than the two. Moreover, it perfectly inherited the "large bean gene" of the elephant bean, becoming the "large bean" Arabica second only to the elephant bean! In addition to being difficult to roast, large beans are also difficult to process as green beans! Because when peeling Pacamara, due to its large size, it often gets stuck in the holes or gaps of the machine. Secondly, most washing stations lack experience in processing large coffee cherries, let alone preparing additional larger mesh screens to specially handle Pacamara! With such accidents occurring frequently, people at the time realized: conventional processing can only be applied to beans of normal size. If it is Pacamara, which is two to three times larger, then the entire processing station's equipment needs to be replaced and readjusted to a set suitable for Pacamara. Who would do that at the time! So, it remained dormant for as long as half a century!

Until 2007, Pacamara won the double crown of the "Cup of Excellence" held in Guatemala and Honduras (meaning it won two championships at the same time), and even swept the top three places in El Salvador, defeating many Geishas that came to compete. Only then did people realize what terrifying advantages this variety had. "Richness and variability" are the flavor advantages produced by combining two excellent varieties. So, people began to imitate and plant Pacamara! In the following years, it successively occupied top positions on various competition lists, and people began to call it a rising star variety on par with Geisha! Mr. Hsu Bao-Lin also gave it the title "Geisha's rival" in his book! - END - Front Street Coffee

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.