El Salvador – Las Laderas, Washed Pacamara (Organic) Filter

Clean and lively, plum, red grape with a creamy mouthfeel and smooth finish.

$25.50

• Organic
• Shade Grown
• Handpicked
• Glyphosate Free

• Intro
• Technical Details
• Recipe
• Producer Profile

• We are thrilled to welcome back the exquisite Pacamara variety from Finca Las Laderas, our second offering from producer Fernando Lima’s 2023 harvest on the side of the Santa Ana volcano in Santa Ana, El Salvador.

  This organic coffee is processed using a washed method at Fernando’s family owned mill, Los Balcanes. Fernando has dedicated Las Laderas to growing a limited quantity of Pacamara, Caturra and Bourbon varieties only, and he tends to the farm using organic practices including vermicast from his local Cuzcachapa Cooperative. Las Laderas has only 40 hectares of shade grown coffee under cultivation, with an additional 20 hectares of the farm dedicated to forest conservation.

  Fernando is constantly innovating, after installing brand new de-pulping, washing and milling equipment at his mill in 2021, is now seeing the results of these investments.

• • Producer Fernando Lima
  • Farm Las Laderas
  • Region Palo de Campana, Santa Ana
  • Farm Altitude 1,650 masl
  • Farm Size 40 hectares
  • Farm Certifications Organic
  • Processing Washed
  • Variety 100% Pacamara
  • Harvest April 2023
  • Roasted On IMF RM60
• • 20g

    ground coffee dose

  • 3:00

    total brew time

  • 300g

    total water volume

  • 95º

    brew temperature

  Our recommended recipe for Pour Over Brewing at home or in-cafe.
  
  We start with a 60g water bloom for 30 seconds.
  
  This recipe is developed on a Kono 01 Size dripper with Kono 01 filter papers. Other equipment configuration may require slight recipe modification.

• Fernando Lima proudly describes his coffee farms as a “Time capsule”; an idyllic snapshot of agriculture from the early twentieth century where farming practices were derived from the distilled knowledge and experience of generations.

  However, it was not a romanticised view of traditional farming methods that first led the Lima family to seek organic certification. In 2006 the Volcano Santa Ana (Ilamtepeque) erupted, destroying much of the farm’s infrastructure and damaging the coffee plantations. Mineral dense volcanic ash covered much of the plantation as it does approximately every 100 years. In conjunction with the chemical agricultural products that had been used on the farm prior to the eruption, the ash served to acidify the soil to such an extent that synthetic fertilizers were no longer viable and in fact would prove detrimental to plant health.

  Faced with a decision that had already been partially made by circumstance, the Lima family moved to take advantage of the natural wealth provided by the volcanic geology of their farms and restructure their entire operation, including the Balcanes coffee processing mill to be certified organic and adopt natural and sustainable methods of production.

  Fernando admits producing coffee in this manner is labor intensive as the many processes; weeding manually, applying organic compost, pruning the native shade canopy trees, and selectively picking ripe cherries by hand all take time and an experienced workforce. However, the Lima family’s continued success in the years following their organic conversion has come to reflect a measurable benefit to brewed coffee cup quality: Since the 2006 eruption, the family has had 16 of their coffees awarded the Cup of Excellence distinction, confirming that they are consistently amongst the best farms in El Salvador.