Rainforest Alliance Certified 2012 COE 5th Place | El Salvador Los Pirineos Estate Pacamara Yellow Honey

Rainforest Alliance Certified, 2012 COE 5th Place | El Salvador Los Pirineos Estate Pacamara Yellow Honey

Los Pirineos Estate is a household name in the specialty coffee world—not only for its eight El Salvador Cup of Excellence awards, but also for owner Gilberto Baraona's passion for coffee and his tireless experimentation with varieties and processing methods. With more than 90 different coffee varieties and 8 different processing methods on the farm, Los Pirineos is practically an experimental station beloved by roasters.

The estate sits on the highest elevations of the Tecapa Volcano in southeastern El Salvador and takes its name from the Pyrenees mountains on the France–Spain border. Gilberto Baraona's family has run it since 1890—more than a century.

Los Pirineos is a beautiful farm with an excellent microclimate: slow cherry maturation, reliable rainfall, and fertile volcanic soil. The processing mill sits in a pass between two mountains with good sunlight and ventilation, ideal conditions for even drying.

Over the past five years, Gilberto has replanted 200,000 coffee trees and poured tremendous energy into improving cultivation, harvesting, and processing. From 2012 he built more raised beds shaded by nets, allowing gentler and longer drying. Alongside the existing Bourbon, Typica, Pacas, and Pacamara varieties, he planned to have 10 new varieties in production by 2017, including Orange Pacamara, Geisha, Original Bourbon, Laurina, Java, and Kenya. At altitudes below 1200 meters he also grows new hybrids including Castillo Naranjal, Costa Rica 95, Lempira, Obata, and Casiopea.

All cherries are hand-picked, with only mature fruit selected; after harvesting and before processing, the lots are screened again to remove underripe or overripe beans. All pulp and skin generated during processing is recycled—catalyzed with California red worms into organic compost—and returned to the coffee trees. Los Pirineos is Rainforest Alliance certified and was among the first estates in El Salvador to receive the certification, with all rainwater naturally filtered.

Gilberto's approach to honey processing is distinctive. At the depulping stage he retains all of the mucilage and moves the coffee straight onto African raised beds. The different honey processes—Yellow Honey, Red Honey, and Black Honey—are distinguished mainly by their drying methods.

Taking this Pacamara Yellow Honey as an example: after the pulp is removed, the coffee is laid out on African raised beds for full sun. For the first three days it must be turned every twenty minutes, then ten turns daily, until the moisture content reaches 12%—yielding a very sweet yellow-honey cup.

For Red Honey, there is no turning at all during the first three days, allowing more intense fermentation; the beans turn reddish and stick together, after which they are turned ten times a day. Black Honey is different again—turned every 20 minutes during the first three days but dried under shade, then ten turns per day. Black Honey dries even more slowly and shows chocolate notes.

Estate Information

Region: Berlín; Usulutan; Tecapa-Chinameca

Estate: Los Pirineos

Owner: Gilberto Baraona

Mill: El Beneficio Los Pirineos

Area: 150 hectares

Altitude: 1550 meters

Variety: Pacamara

Process: Yellow Honey

Awards: 8-time El Salvador Cup of Excellence winner, 5th place in 2012

Certification: Rainforest Alliance Certified

Flavor Notes: Grape-like sweetness, toffee, hazelnut, hops

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90-91°C

Grind Size: Fuji Royal grind setting 3.5 (64% pass-through on the China No. 20 sieve)

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15 with 15g of coffee. First pour 25g of water for a 25-second bloom. Second pour to 120g, then pause. Once the water level drops to halfway, continue pouring slowly up to 225g total. Extraction time around 2:00.

Analysis: A three-stage pour clearly expresses the front, middle, and back-end flavors of the coffee. Because the V60's many ribs drain quickly, pausing during the pour helps stretch the extraction time.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the honey-process story of Los Pirineos has whetted your appetite, Geisha is another variety worth exploring, and FrontStreet Coffee carries a full range from the two homes of Geisha—Panama, where it made its name, and Ethiopia, where it was born. At the top of the Panamanian range sits Esmeralda Estate: the red-label "Esmeralda Special" grows at 1600-1800 meters, must cup above 90 points for every lot, and each lot comes entirely from a single small plot with its own lot number, so you can pick the exact flavor nuance you prefer. The green-label "Private Collection" blends batches from multiple plots to express Esmeralda's signature high-altitude Geisha character at a friendlier price, making it excellent value.

For newcomers who want to taste the legendary Geisha profile without splurging, FrontStreet Coffee usually points first to its Panama Boquete Geisha, an entry-level Geisha offering the classic orange-blossom honey sweetness, oolong-tea texture, delicate fruit acidity, and distinct layers. On the Ethiopian side, the Gold label (RARITIES) from Geisha Village—built by a couple 12 miles from the Gesha forest on 475 hectares—comes from Geisha 1931 trees, accounts for just 10% of production, is finished as an elaborate natural, and is frequently chosen by baristas for international competitions; the Red label (GROWERS RESERVE) comes from Gori Gesha trees, makes up 15% of production, scores 88 or above on the SCA scale, and carries full lot-level traceability. FrontStreet's Genlana Gesha from Yirgacheffe is another single-variety gem: grown around the Genlana station founded in 2014 amid 700 hectares of shaded, mostly wild land, hand-picked fully ripe and dried on raised beds for 14-20 days.

Brewing any of these Geishas at home, FrontStreet recommends a medium-coarse grind—about 78% pass-through on a No. 20 sieve, roughly the size of fine granulated sugar—water at 91°C, and a 15g dose on a small Hario V60 at 1:16. Use a three-pour method: 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then pour in small circles to 125g, wait for the bed to drain to half, then continue to 225g, with a total drawdown of 2:10 to 2:20. Geisha roasts medium-light and is dense, so it tends to sink and clog the dripper—a coarser grind keeps the flow steady.