La Cabaña

COUNTRY: El Salvador

FARM/COOP/STATION: Finca San Francisco

VARIETAL: Bourbon, Other

PROCESSING: Natural

ALTITUDE: 1500 meters

PRODUCER: Jose Antonio Salaverria & Sons

REGION: Santa Ana

FARM SIZE: 294 ha

FLAVOUR NOTES: Blackcurrant toddy, dark forest berries, round dark chocolate, black cherry, hint of bergamot/citrus peel

ABOUT THIS COFFEE FARM

Finca San Francisco is a large farm of 294 hectares that has been divided into "tablones". Cherries from each tablon are kept separate for improved processing and preparation. The tablones range in altitudes from 1200 masl up to 1700 masl.

This farm is part of a project with an El Salvadorian producer, Jose Antonio Salaverria and his two sons Andres and Jose Antonio, the younger. They are 6th generation coffee producers, their ancestors started growing coffee in Huachapan. Jose Antonio Senior's father offered him a house in 1970, but Jose Antonio asked for a farm instead. He was given Finca Los Nogales, which remains in the family, and is one of the farms supplying us with coffee.

The coffees from the different farms are all processed at their beneficio (central mill). They bought Beneficio Las Cruces in 1990 and have made significant improvements since then. Much of their success is due to their passion for coffee. They are hard working and realistic, patient and focused on quality to make their business sustainable. They have also built a great team. Jose Antonio considers his staff as the company's biggest asset.

The family has three main areas of coffee production around the Santa Ana volcano in El Salvador. They have always produced high quality at a larger scale, but previously the coffee was mainly separated into a few brand names based on the three main areas, Santa Rita, San Francisco and El Molino.

El Molino is an old mill with surrounding farms and was bought 80 years ago by the family. The farms surrounding El Molino are around 100 years old. The family have owned the San Francisco complex since about 2002, and Santa Rita since 2005, but their three coffee growing areas actually consist of a great number of farms, some they inherited, some they have bought over the last decades.

PROCESSING

The most impressive thing about coffees from the Salaverria family is the overall quality of picking: deep blood red and uniform colour. Considering the volumes they grow, it is pretty amazing!

The coffees are, for the most part, processed based on trials and adjustments we made together at the wet mill. They use eco pulpers called Jotagallo that manage to remove about 80% of the mucilage. Their standard procedure is to take the parchment from the pulpers directly to the patio for drying. We have decided to soak most of our purchased coffees overnight for ten hours after pulping as we believe it will make the coffee even more elegant. We feel the cup is brighter and cleaner, seems like shelf life can be increased and the acidity profile more distinct. The cups tend to be more closed in the beginning, but they normally open up some months after picking. We tend to like these more. The coffees are then dried on clay patio for up to 15 days, or on drying beds in sun or under shade.

Naturals

We are slowly increasing the purchase of naturals as well. The Salaverria family has a long tradition of producing naturals that are a much higher quality than many others from Central America. They have good weather conditions for naturals: a dry climate, and not too hot. The family dry most of their naturals on patios at higher altitudes than Las Cruces. We believe slower drying on African beds decreases the flavour of ferment and pulp, and contributes to a cleaner and more complex profile. We want to improve it, and we have done some experiments with shade dried naturals on raised beds the recent years. The result is a delicate coffee with hardly any pulpiness at all.

Varietals

Most of these coffees are of what the Salaverrias call the San Francisco variety—that’s a hybrid of Pacas and the old Bourbon Elite, developed at the farm. Some of the blocks do contain old Bourbon trees, Bourbon Elite, and a mix of Bourbon and Pacas. Occasionally you can find Pacamaras as well as Catuai, Caturra and Catimors. They have recently established blocks and gardens experimenting with new and exotic cultivars.

Agronomy and plant treatment

Leaf rust has been one of the major challenges for farmers in El Salvador the last years. Many producers are now giving up and abandoning their farms. The Salaverrias have worked the last 8 years to regenerate the soil through usage of Huisil (organic compost/fertilizer) as a soil regenerator.

Jose Antonio Senior is one of the founders of the Huisil factory, where they produce fertiliser based on organic waste. Coffee pulp makes up 40%, the rest is from fish, meat, chicken dung, bones and plants. It smells terrible during production, but after it is dried it is converted into pellets which are easier on the nose, plus this fertliser really works! We have actually tasted some trials with this 100% organic fertiliser and it also seems to improve the flavorus. The problem is that with the aggressive leaf rust attacks, it’s a gamble. They risk losing a lot of their production if they don’t use the traditional fertilisers in the mix.

According to Jose Antonio junior, who is managing the agronomy side, it’s about making the plants healthy, strong and resistant. This is what they currently do:

Use 50% Huisil in all farms as well as nitrogen to develop new growth and potassium for the bean to grow and develop. They also use a combination of boron, sink, sulfur and magnesium. In June/July they need a complete mix to help the plant develop the beans and stay strong. They apply two complex mixes and one pure nitrogen. They also apply foilars which are applied directly to the tree such as a copper foliar which creates a layer to prevent further leaf rust, but doesn’t kill the rust that is already there.

They experiment with different pruning and stumping methods which vary depending on the altitude and the cultivar. For many of the farms with Bourbon tree, they use the traditional “parra” method where they bend down the mother stems and allow up to four new shoots to develop into smaller trees on each stem. One old tree can cover a couple of square meters and they become very productive if you do it right.

Sustainability and social responsibility

60% of their production is Rainforest Certified.

The Salaverrias give significant bonuses to farm managers based on the performance of the coffees and premiums the coffee earns.

The family employs as many permanent staff members as possible, which allows them to maintain a loyal work force, 50 – 60 of these workers live on their farms.

They offer better salaries for the pickers, and teach good environmental practices in picking.

By creating good systems they help workers to be efficient so they can leave earlier and spend more time with families.

They offer work safety education, provide housing for casual workers in San Francisco. health care for workers through doctors visiting the farms, plus they pay the local clinics for medical care of their workers.They also built two medical clinics in Atacco and are supporting them financially and donated land to two other clinics for the government.

They donated a site for the school in San Francisco, and are building a soccer field.

The tradition and culture of the family is generally to do a lot of charity for the local communities.

COFFEE IN EL SALVADOR

Coffee arrived in El Salvador in the 1880s and soon became a major wealth generator for the country’s elite rulers. Indigo, the plant that was used to dye cloth that iconic blue, had long been the main export crop for both El Salvador and Guatemala. However, in the 1880s, as new, cheaper, man-made dyes became available, the country’s indigo export business gradually disappeared.

As coffee supplanted indigo as the country’s biggest export crop, the small, landholding elite who possessed large swathes of land benefited. These elites were almost all deeply connected to politics, including the president of El Salvador himself, General Tomás Regalado, who at one point owned more than 6,000 hectares. Politicians had a habit of using their office (and the military) to force peasants to cede their land to cronies and even to work as poorly- or unpaid forced labor on large estates.

The landed elite invested heavily in infrastructure - roads and mills - that enabled El Salvador’s coffee industry to flourish. However, it was not until many years later, when land was redistributed to landless farmers, that the majority of the population was able to benefit from those investments.

By the 1920s, 90% of El Salvador’s exports were coffee, and by the 1970s, El Salvador was the world’s 4th largest coffee producer. This accolade is made even more impressive when considering El Salvador’s diminutive size. Unfortunately, El Salvador’s standing as an agricultural powerhouse was decimated by the full-fledged civil war that lasted from 1979 to 1992.

One outcome of the country’s civil war was significant land reform that disaggregated many of the large estates and redistributed land to landless workers. Today, 95% of El Salvador’s coffee growers cultivate coffee on fewer than 20 hectares. Estate sizes for single owners are capped at 245 hectares.