El Salvador Santa Leticia Pacamara Honey Processing Brewing Guide_Pour-over Honey Processed Pacamara

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El Salvador Coffee Region - Santa Ana Volcano

Although El Salvador is a small country, never underestimate its coffee production capacity. At its peak, it was once the world's fourth-largest coffee-producing nation. However, decades of civil war nearly devastated the coffee industry. Fortunately, the cessation of hostilities in recent years has allowed the coffee industry to regain vitality. The only benefit the civil war brought to El Salvador was that farmers left their fields barren, failing to catch the trend of Catimor sun cultivation that has been popular over the past two decades. This preserved the ancient Bourbon and Typica varieties. In other words, El Salvador still employs the most traditional shade-grown cultivation methods, which positively enhances coffee aroma development. In 2005, El Salvador's hybrid variety Pacamara made a spectacular showing at the Cup of Excellence (COE), bewildering many international cuppers who were unsure how to score it. Unexpectedly, this hybrid bean not only broke the existing boundaries of coffee fragrance and richness but also expanded the visibility of El Salvadoran coffee.

Santa Leticia Estate Pacamara

This bean comes from Santa Leticia Estate in El Salvador, located near the town of Apaneca in Ahuachapan Province, managed by third-generation coffee farmer Ricardo Valdivieso and his family. In 1870, Ricardo Valdivieso's grandfather purchased this land and named it after his wife 'Leticia'.

Pacamara

Pacamara is a coffee variety that has emerged prominently in the past decade. This variety originated in El Salvador and is a hybrid of Pacas and Maragogipe. Pacamara is another coffee variety that swept the Cup of Excellence competitions following Geisha, once becoming a formidable rival to Geisha coffee. However, Pacamara is much more "affordable" than Geisha in terms of price. From a flavor perspective, the author personally prefers Pacamara for its higher balance.

As the birthplace of Pacamara, El Salvador has never lacked excellent coffee estates. Santa Leticia Estate is located in the Apaneca volcanic region of western El Salvador, with an average altitude of 1,400 meters. The Pacamara produced here undergoes honey processing, boasting explosive fruit notes while maintaining extremely high balance between acidity and bitterness. The flavor is gentle and long-lasting, with a rich body and excellent sweetness.

How to Brew El Salvador Coffee [Santa Leticia Pacamara Honey Process]?

FrontStreet Coffee's pour-over reference: Weigh 15g of [Santa Leticia Pacamara Honey Process] coffee powder, pour into a grinder for medium grinding. The ground particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use BG grinder setting 5R (60% standard sieve pass rate), water temperature 89°C, extracted with V60 dripper.

Pour hot water from the gooseneck kettle in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. Start timing when brewing begins, brew to 30g in 15 seconds, then stop pouring. When the time reaches 1 minute, begin the second pour. Like the first pour, move in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper, avoiding the area where coffee powder meets the filter paper to prevent channel effects.

Leave a circle when pouring to the outermost layer of coffee powder, then continue pouring in circles toward the center. At 2 minutes and 20 seconds, brew to 220g to complete the coffee brewing.

Japanese-style Ice Pour-over [Santa Leticia Pacamara Honey Process]

FrontStreet Coffee's ice pour-over [Santa Leticia Pacamara Honey Process] reference:

El Salvador coffee [Santa Leticia Pacamara Honey Process], medium roast, BG grinder setting 5M (67% standard sieve pass rate)

20g powder, 150g ice, 150g hot water. Water temperature should be 1°C higher than the normal 90°C recommended for pour-over. Normal grinding uses Fuji 3.5 setting, while ice pour-over uses slightly finer - Fuji 3 setting.

Bloom with 40g water for 30 seconds.

Segmented pouring: first segment with 60g water, second segment with 40g water. Use a relatively fine but high water column to stir forcefully, allowing the coffee powder to roll fully. However, be careful not to let the liquid level get too high or pour onto the edge filter paper.

The entire extraction time is approximately 2.5 minutes (similar to the normal extraction time for 20g powder).

Important Notice :

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