How Santa Rita Coffee from El Salvador is Made and How Salvadoran Coffee Beans are Graded

Pour-over Brewing: Santa Rita

15g coffee grounds, medium grind (Fuji ghost teeth blade setting 4), V60 dripper, water temperature 88-89°C. First pour 30g water, bloom for 27 seconds. Continue pouring to 105g, wait until the coffee bed drains halfway before continuing. Slowly pour until reaching 225g total, discarding the tail end. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Product Information

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee
Shelf Life: 90 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk coffee beans
State: Roasted coffee beans
Origin: El Salvador
Roast Level: Medium roast

Processing Method: Washed

About Yellow Bourbon

Yellow Bourbon is the coffee variety whose ripe cherries turn yellow. First discovered in Brazil, it is still grown there primarily. It is believed to have sprung from a hybrid mutation between red-fruited Bourbon and a yellow-fruited Typica variant called "Amerelo de Botocatu," and it ranks among the most exceptional varieties in cultivation. Where typical Bourbon cherries march from green to yellow to red, Yellow Bourbon cherries simply stay yellow. Grown at high altitude and dried naturally in the sun, Yellow Bourbon produces a cup of exceptional flavor.

El Salvador Santa Rita Yellow Bourbon Washed SHG EP

Country: El Salvador
Estate: Santa Rita Estate
Region: Santa Rita
Grade: SHG (Strictly High Grown)
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Flavor Profile: Wheatgrass, roasted nuts, maltose

February 2012 Coffee Review Rating: 94 points

Santa Rita Estate

Santa Rita Estate sits in the northern reaches of the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountains at roughly 5,000 feet of elevation. Nearby looms Santa Ana Volcano — Volcan Santa Ana in Spanish — in southwestern El Salvador's Santa Ana Department, the country's highest peak at 2,362-2,381 meters. The estate is a model coffee producer for El Salvador.

El Salvador Coffee Overview

El Salvador is one of Central America's smaller countries, and its coffee runs light-bodied, aromatic, and pure with a touch of acidity. Its calling card is excellent balance — a genuinely Central American specialty, with acidity, bitterness, and sweetness in tidy proportion.

El Salvador belongs alongside Mexico and Guatemala in Central America's high-quality production group, fighting for the region's top 1-2 spots. High-altitude origins here yield uniformly large beans with rich, mild profiles, and like Guatemala and Costa Rica, El Salvador grades by altitude — the higher, the better. Three grades map to elevation: SHB (Strictly High Grown) for high altitude, HEC (High Grown Central) for mid-high, and CS (Central Standard) for low. The country's best-known brand is Pipil — the Aztec-Mayan word for coffee — which has earned organic certification from the Organic Certified Institute of America.

Flavor Experience

In the cup: wheatgrass, roasted nuts, and maltose over a smooth, creamy texture, with rounded acidity and sweet notes of brown sugar and hazelnut chocolate.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you enjoy balanced, nutty cups, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a natural companion to this Salvadoran Yellow Bourbon. From the celebrated Cerrado region and semi-washed processed, it shows medium-roast aromas of cream, peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut in a rounded, low-acid body — delicious as pour-over, and equally at home in a moka pot, espresso SOE, syphon, or French press. For something more distinctive, the FrontStreet Fazenda Rainha Yellow Bourbon from Mogiana's fertile red volcanic soil offers rare yellow Bourbon genetics with cleaner fruit character, cane-sugar sweetness, and chocolate notes.