What Defines Coffee Bean Origin in El Salvador?

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America by area, yet it holds nine major coffee-producing regions. Coffee was introduced between 1779 and 1796, with the earliest trees planted on land belonging to two farmers from Ahuachapán. Bourbon and Pacas remain the main varieties, while Pacamara appears regularly at COE.

Coffee growing only received government support from the mid-19th century, and by the 1930s and 1940s favorable credit policies helped the crop exceed 90 percent of agricultural exports. Civil war and leaf rust later damaged the industry. Each Arabica variety brings different bean size, altitude needs and cup character to the country's specialty output.

Although El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America by area, it has nine major coffee-producing regions and a rich cultivation history. From coffee's introduction in the 18th century, to becoming a major global exporter in the 20th century, and then suffering severe blows from civil war and leaf rust, Salvadoran coffee has experienced dramatic ups and downs. Today, Bourbon and Pacas remain the main varieties, while Pacamara has become a regular at COE thanks to its large beans and outstanding flavor. Front Street Coffee takes you through El Salvador's coffee regions, varieties, and flavor characteristics, and shares brewing suggestions and tasting notes for Pacamara coffee beans.

Although El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America by land area, its number of coffee-producing regions is quite considerable. In recent years, many excellent specialty Salvadoran coffees have appeared on the market, leaving a deep impression on many enthusiasts. Next, please follow Front Street as we step into El Salvador's coffee world.

El Salvador's Coffee Story

After reviewing the materials, Front Street learned that El Salvador's coffee cultivation history can be traced back to the mid-18th century, and the country's coffee industry has been closely intertwined with the nation's overall development.

During the colonial period, indigo, as a natural dye, was the first agricultural product in El Salvador's history, usually obtained by processing the leaves of a plant called "Jiquilite." Indigo production occupied most of El Salvador's 18th century; however, as the European Industrial Revolution spurred the rise of the synthetic dye industry, this traditional craft quickly lost its competitiveness.

According to relevant records, coffee was introduced to El Salvador between 1779 and 1796, with the earliest coffee trees planted on the land of two farmers from Ahuachapán. Although coffee had already entered El Salvador in the 18th century, it was not until the mid-19th century that the government decided to take measures to support and promote domestic coffee cultivation. In the 1930s and 1940s, driven by credit policies favorable to coffee growers, the entire coffee industry showed strong momentum of development, and coffee already accounted for more than 90% of El Salvador's agricultural exports.

Since 1857, coffee cultivation also expanded across the entire territory of El Salvador, starting from Ahuachapán, then spreading to Santa Ana and Sonsonate, and afterward being introduced to western San Vicente, the mountainous area of Berlín, and near Volcán Chaparrastique in San Miguel. Today, large areas of coffee plants are found throughout El Salvador and have become the main agricultural product for many local farmers.

The modernization of coffee cultivation in El Salvador began with the high prices of the 1950s. Farmers first intercropped coffee trees with other crops for shade, while also beginning to use fertilizers and appropriately increasing planting density in order to concentrate on improving productivity. In this way, by the mid-1970s El Salvador had become the world's fifth-largest coffee producer and fourth-largest coffee exporter, with a harvest reaching 5 million quintals.

However, from the 1980s to the 1990s, civil war broke out in El Salvador. A large number of individual farmers came under armed pressure from guerrillas and the military, coffee sales and exports were forced to be nationalized, and farmers also had to stop investing in their farms. This caused Salvadoran coffee production and prices to decline sharply between 1997 and 2001. According to ICO data, the country's coffee production fell by more than 34% at that time. In 2013, coffee leaf rust began to spread across the country, and only 3% of the coffee trees planted in El Salvador were rust-resistant varieties, so production in the 2014 harvest season fell by nearly 60%.

It was not until 2014 that the agricultural management department led by Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Lic. Orestes Ortéz planned to reactivate coffee cultivation and created a dedicated CENTA coffee department to strengthen scientific and technical support. This department had a team of 80 technicians, guided by Dr. Adán Hernández, a Salvadoran coffee cultivation expert. It not only provided fungicides to prevent rust problems in coffee trees, but also cultivated new varieties with strong rust resistance for farmers, enabling coffee farmers to renovate their plantations and improve quality and yield.

El Salvador's Coffee Regions and Varieties

According to statistics, El Salvador currently has more than 130,000 hectares of coffee area, of which about half consists of low-altitude coffee plantations, 33% is mid- to high-altitude coffee, and only the remaining 16% is high-altitude coffee. Among them, 85% of growers are small farmers with less than 7 hectares, and only a small portion have more than 7 hectares under cultivation.

El Salvador has nine major coffee-producing regions in total: Apaneca, Apaneca Llamatepec, El Balsamo-Quetzaltepec, Cacahuatique, and Santa Ana in the southwest; Chalatenango, Chichontepec, and Metapan in the north-central area; and Tecapa-Chinameca scattered among the rivers.

Although Typica was the first Arabica variety planted on a large scale in El Salvador, due to the impact of leaf rust, most farms later switched to Bourbon coffee starting in the 19th century. By the middle of the 20th century, Bourbon coffee mutated into Pacas, which was traced genealogically by ISIC and vigorously promoted for planting. Today, Bourbon and its mutation Pacas have become the main varieties popular in Salvadoran coffee plantations. Among them, Bourbon accounts for more than 60%, while Pacas is close to one quarter of the country's coffee production.

However, compared with these two common coffee varieties, the representative that has entered El Salvador's COE with high-quality flavor is the increasingly famous Pacamara in recent years. As a large bean with a huge body, it was released by the Salvadoran Coffee Research Institute (ISIC) after crossbreeding Pacas from El Salvador with the Typica mutation Maragogype from Brazil. This variety has both the excellent mouthfeel of Pacas, and the green beans also inherit the large size characteristic of Maragogype. In flavor, it has lively and bright acidity, sometimes with biscuit-like notes, sometimes with a juicy texture, and excellent body and oily mouthfeel.

Front Street Coffee: El Salvador Pacamara Coffee Beans

Region: Sonsonate Izalco area Farm: Finca Ataisi Grade: SHG Altitude: 1,800 meters Variety: Pacamara Processing Method: Washed Flavor: Nuts, chocolate, cream, strawberry jam, passion fruit

Flavor Characteristics of Salvadoran Coffee

Front Street Brewing Suggestions

Dripper: V60

Water Temperature: 90℃

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: Fine granulated sugar coarseness (80% passing rate on China No. 20 standard sieve)

Pour the coffee grounds into the V60 dripper, wet the coffee bed with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds to form a dome and let it bloom for 30s, then pour in a thin stream from the inside outward in circles until 125g, then pause. When the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, continue pouring the third stage in the same thin stream until 225g, and after all the coffee liquid has finished filtering, remove the dripper. The time is about 2 minutes.

Front Street tasted this Pacamara coffee through pour-over extraction: the entry is very delicate and silky, with clear and gentle fruit acidity gliding across the tongue. Like all Pacamara characteristics, it is quiet and soft. The middle section has the fruit acidity of fresh wild berries and the nutty aroma of hazelnuts, while the finish has obvious caramel sweetness, a long and delicate smooth sweetness in the aftertaste, and a lasting sweet return.

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