How to Brew a Perfect Pour-Over Coffee with El Salvador's Santa Rita Estate Beans

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El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. According to relevant literature, coffee cultivation has been estimated to have begun there since 1740. Eight percent of El Salvador's territory is dedicated to shade-grown coffee cultivation. The advantage of this method is that coffee beans can mature uniformly, with increased mucilage content, higher weight, and greater opportunity for the formation of sweet polyphenols, allowing the main components of coffee beans to fully develop. Coffee trees with excessive sun exposure will have curled leaf edges, causing moisture loss, which is detrimental to photosynthesis, reduces carbon dioxide absorption, and decreases sugar formation. El Salvador's coffee fruits are harvested only once a year, mostly concentrated between November and February of the following year. Over 60% of the varieties are of the Bourbon lineage. It's particularly noteworthy that El Salvador is also the main country for cultivating Pacas and Pacamara varieties. Additionally, El Salvador's coffee grading system is basically divided into three levels based on cultivation altitude: Central Standard (C.S.) for lowlands (500-900m), High Grown (H.G.) for highlands (900-1200m), and Strictly High Grown (S.H.G.) for very highlands (1200m and above).

Santa Rita Estate

The name "Santa Rita" honors an Italian nun of the same name. Located in the Ilamatepec volcanic region, the fertile volcanic soil provides ideal conditions for coffee cultivation at Santa Rita Farm. All coffee trees are shaded, and these shade trees also serve as habitats for local wildlife. The coffee is 100% hand-harvested, selecting only fully mature coffee cherries that resemble red cherries.

Located in the southwest, Santa Rita Farm is a model exemplary farm in El Salvador that produces fine coffee. The owner is a farmer who is very courageous in trying various changes. For example, the natural processing beans launched in 2009 caused a sensation. Then, in December of the same year, PB (Peaberry) beans were selected from the 60 million pounds of coffee produced by the farm and received a high score of 91 points from the professional coffee cupping website Coffee Review in the United States. The farm continuously updates its coffee varieties, including interesting coffee beans such as Orange Bourbon, Red Bourbon, and Yellow Bourbon. I think we should be able to taste honey-processed coffee from the farm in the next season. This is a farm worth long-term attention. This batch of traditional Bourbon variety coffee beans from Santa Rita Farm has very few defective beans, empty shells, or insect-damaged beans. When roasted to light roast (city), the weight loss ratio of the coffee beans is 16%. The color is uniform and fast, with a low defect rate after baking - this is a coffee bean with meticulous processing and selection.

How to Properly Brew El Salvador Coffee from Santa Rita Estate?

FrontStreet Coffee Pour-over Reference:

Weigh 15g of Santa Rita Estate 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 (standard sieve pass rate 60%), water temperature 89°C, and extract with a V60 dripper.

Pour the hot water from the pour-over kettle in clockwise circles with the center of the dripper as the focal point. Start timing when brewing begins. In 15 seconds, brew the coffee to 30g, then stop pouring water. When the time reaches 1 minute, perform the second pour. For the second pour, same as before, pour in clockwise circles with the center of the dripper as the focal point. The water flow should not hit the area where the coffee powder connects with the filter paper to avoid channeling effects.

Leave a circle when pouring coffee powder to the outermost circle, then brew circle by circle toward the center. At 2 minutes and 20 seconds, brew the coffee to 220g. The coffee brewing is complete.

Japanese-style Iced Pour-over of Santa Rita Estate

FrontStreet Coffee Iced Pour-over Reference for Santa Rita Estate:

El Salvador coffee from Santa Rita Estate, medium roast, BG grinder setting 5M (standard sieve pass rate 67%).

20g of coffee powder, 150g of ice cubes, 150g of hot water. The water temperature should be 1°C higher than the normal pour-over recommendation of 90°C. Normal grinding is Fuji 3.5 setting, while iced pour-over uses a slightly finer setting - Fuji 3 setting.

Bloom with 40g of water for 30 seconds.

Pour in segments, first segment with 60g of water, second segment with 40g of water. Use a relatively fine but high water column for pouring, stirring forcefully to make the coffee powder roll fully, but be careful not to let the liquid level get too high or hit the filter paper at the edge.

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

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