El Salvador Coffee - Flavor and Characteristics of Finca Cajamarca's Premium Bourbon Variety Coffee Beans

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El Salvador Coffee - Cajamarca Award-Winning Farm Selected Bourbon Variety Coffee Beans - Flavor and Characteristics?

Cajamarca Farm has just finished processing its honey-processed beans. The estate completes its washed beans first, then moves on to the sun-dried and honey-processed lots, a sequence that takes about two months. Cajamarca produces first-class coffee and currently runs five farms, providing 20 permanent jobs that can rise to 100 people during harvest. It won the second Cup of Excellence Presidential Award for Salvadoran coffee, and its coffee is exported to the United States, Japan and the Netherlands. In August 2013, Direct Coffee once again brought in the freshest Cajamarca honey-processed beans.

Since 1856 this family has kept up a long tradition of coffee growing. The coffee comes from Comasagua, a small village in the Cordillera del Balsamo (Balsam Mountain Range) in La Libertad, El Salvador, at altitudes of 1,350-1,600 meters. The land here is prime coffee territory, naturally shaded by abundant balsam trees. The cup is exceptional: the coffee draws rich nutrients from the fresh water that flows down the mountainside into the Comasagua River below, and the beans show a balanced, creamy, high-quality texture. The fruity and floral character of the balsam trees is very prominent in the taste, giving the coffee a velvety quality found nowhere else in the world.

Property Characteristics

Farm Information

Farm Name: Cajamarca Farm

Farmer: Francisco Arturo Alvarez Meza

Grade: SHB

Awards: Second El Salvador Coffee Presidential Award

City: Apaneca-Ilamatepec

Region: San Geronimo, Nejapa

Country: El Salvador

Altitude: 1,350-1,600 meters

Average Rainfall: 1,800-2,200 millimeters

Coffee Characteristics

Bean Information

Variety: Bourbon

Processing System: Honey processing, African raised beds (sun-dried) drying

Flowering Period: June-August

Harvest Period: Annual harvest between November and February of the following year

Cupping Notes (Roast Level): Cupping roast level is 60 seconds after first crack (Cinnamon roast)

Flavor Profile

Aroma/Flavor: Raw olives, almonds, grapes, vanilla, hazelnuts, chocolate, honey, red sugarcane

Acidity: Citrus, plum acidity, mild and low acidity

Complexity and Other: Smooth and gentle, very sweet, low complexity, floral and fruity notes coexisting, a smooth acid-to-sweet transition with no abruptness

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 88°C

Grind Size: Fuji grind level 4

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, 15g of coffee grounds. First pour 25g of water and let it bloom for 25 seconds. Second pour to 120g of water, then stop. When the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, continue pouring slowly until you reach 225g. Extraction time approximately 2:00.

Analysis: A three-stage brew clearly separates the front, middle and back-end flavors of the coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Washed processing uses water to handle the coffee fruit, a traditional method built around flotation, depulping, fermentation to break down the mucilage, washing or further soaking, drying and finally hulling. Because the beans spend so long in water, chemical changes inside them consume much of the monosaccharides (fructose and glucose), lowering the coffee's sugar content while raising its organic acids. The result is a cup that keeps more of the bean's own aroma while showing bright fruit acidity, clean and fresh.

For a washed coffee with real clarity, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Gutingting cooperative is a fine place to start. Many people know Yirgacheffe without realizing that, because local farms are small, cherries are sent to a cooperative for shared processing and sale; Gutingting, from Gutingting village, is an outstanding processing team with skilled hands, and its unusually refined, clean cup is what made its name. The washed process lets FrontStreet Coffee's Gutingting show jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity to the fullest, and after a medium-light roast it releases green tea and honey notes. It suits pour-over, cold brew and espresso, among other methods.

Mention washed coffee and FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Little Tomato is one of the best-known examples, since Kenya excels at double washed processing: the beans are soaked and washed repeatedly to strip the mucilage, then soaked again, dried, hulled and stored. That repeated rinsing and soaking draws out the juice to the maximum, and the cup brims with cherry tomato, smoked plum, snow pear, black plum and yellow sugar aromas, sweet-sour and juicy — a favorite of many coffee lovers. Washed coffee is also the foundation of a classic Blue Mountain cup: since Jamaica is an island with less sunlight than other origins, removing the skin, pulp and mucilage before drying shortens drying time and minimizes spoilage, producing bright, low-defect beans. The washed process keeps FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 rich and pure, pouring out hazelnut, cream, chocolate and caramel, with a balanced body in which no single note dominates or falls short.