Is El Salvador Himalaya Coffee Good? El Salvador Coffee Brewing Methods

About Project Origin

Sasa Sestic, the 2015 World Barista Champion, launched a green-coffee sourcing project called Project Origin three years ago together with his team at ONA Coffee. The project works directly with coffee-farming households in poorer countries and regions, improving their production conditions and paying them 20% above fair-trade prices.

The project's other aims are to strengthen the bond between roasters and coffee farmers and to guide growers toward producing high-quality beans. To date, Sasa has built relationships with coffee growers in eight countries, including Brazil, Panama, India, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.

Coffee Varieties

Bourbon coffee was originally cultivated on Réunion Island, known as Île Bourbon before 1789. Simply put, Bourbon is an Arabica variety that typically produces red cherries—hence Red Bourbon—though Yellow Bourbon and Orange Bourbon also exist. Yellow Bourbon yields less but cup quality is higher.

Typica is one of the oldest of the Arabica varieties. Also known as the old small-bean variety, it yields little and is hard to cultivate, which is why it commands far higher prices than ordinary commercial coffee. Typica originates from southeastern Ethiopia and Sudan and is the most widely planted coffee variety in the Western Hemisphere.

Processing Method: Semi-Washed

Finca Himalaya sits in the renowned Santa Ana growing region on the Apaneca mountain range at an altitude of 1500 meters, and is one of the few estates managed by Aida Batlle. The cultivated varieties are mainly Bourbon.

The estate's coffee is washed at the El Divisadero processing plant in Ataco under the name of Mauricio Salaverria, then dried evenly in sunlight and airflow on African raised beds. Mauricio inherited the business from his parents and grandparents and has worked in coffee since childhood, with a particular focus on specialty cultivation.

Brewing Instructions

Pour-over El Salvador coffee: 15g of coffee at a medium grind (setting #4 on a Fuji Royal serrated-burr grinder), V60 dripper, water at 88-89°C. First pour 30g of water for a 27-second pre-infusion, then pour to 105g and stop. Once the water level in the coffee bed drops to half, continue pouring slowly until you reach 225g. Discard the tail section. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Flavor Description

Red-wine acidity, plum, brown sugar, full body, long aftertaste.

El Salvador Finca Himalaya

Country: El Salvador

Estate: Finca Himalaya

Region: Santa Ana

Altitude: 1580-1720 meters

Varieties: Red Bourbon, Typica

Processing Plant: El Divisadero

Flavor: Plum, brown sugar, red-wine acidity

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee
Ingredients: In-house roasted
Shelf Life: 30 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk coffee beans
Product Form: Roasted coffee beans
Origin: El Salvador
Coffee Type: Other

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you enjoy a balanced cup where gentle acidity, sweetness, and body all play nicely together, FrontStreet Coffee recommends two medium-roast favorites from its lineup:

FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon — made for those who dislike both sourness and bitterness. From Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, this distinctive Yellow Bourbon is quietly sweet, and the medium roast draws out aromas and sweetness of creamy peanuts, chocolate, toast, and sugarcane. It extracts beautifully as a pour-over and is equally suited to a moka pot or an espresso machine.

FrontStreet "Strawberry Candy" Geisha Blend — for a sweeter medium roast, start with this fruit-forward blend, which pairs a honey-processed Costa Rican component with washed Panama Geisha from two of Central and South America's most celebrated origins. Roasted medium to showcase the best of both, it pours with orange-blossom honeyed notes and a rounded sweetness, and works wonderfully as cold brew, pour-over, or espresso—refreshing from the very first sip.