What is Pacamara Coffee? How Should You Drink Honey-Processed Pacamara Coffee?

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The Origin of Pacamara

Pacamara is not a product of natural evolution or chance hybridization — it was deliberately bred by a team of skilled coffee breeders in El Salvador. More than half a century ago, in 1958, the Genetic Breeding Department of El Salvador's Coffee Research Center (ISIC) first crossed Pacas (a Bourbon mutation) with Maragogype (a Typica mutation)...

Crossing two pure lines produces F1 offspring carrying a huge number of heterozygous gene pairs — very "impure" bloodlines, in plain terms — so the next step required multiple generations of self-pollination to separate traits and stabilize the genes. Every generation had to begin with manual pollination, followed by seedling cultivation, planting, and years of growing to maturity. That alone took 3–4 years per cycle!

In parallel, breeders had to measure the performance of countless offspring, select lines with desirable traits, then self-pollinate, grow out, and select again. By the fifth generation (F5), thirty years had passed — essentially an entire career for a young breeding specialist — before the variety was finally finished!

Even so, because only five generations of self-pollination were completed, a few heterozygous gene pairs remain. That's why Pacamara still occasionally reverts, showing traits inherited from either Pacas or Maragogype...

Pacamara Characteristics

Pacamara is the hybrid of Pacas and Maragogype, born in El Salvador in 1958. Alongside the Maragogype inheritance of huge bean size and high cup quality, it also benefits from Pacas traits: higher productivity, strong adaptation to local climates, and good resistance to weather stress.

This particular lot lives up to the variety's reputation — the beans are enormous. Fully 80% of the green beans reach 18 mesh, and more than half cannot pass through the first screen. The shape matches Pacamara's signature elongated form. The green beans are intensely aromatic with a light fruity fragrance, evenly colored, and relatively low in density.

Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's recommended method: Pour-over

Dripper: Hario V60

Water temperature: 90°C

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: BG 5R (58% pass rate on a China-standard #20 sieve)

Technique: Bloom with 29g of water for 32 seconds, then pour in stages up to 120g. Once the water level drops and the coffee bed is about to show through, continue pouring to 226g and stop. When the bed is about to show through again, remove the dripper. (Timing starts at the beginning of the bloom.) Total extraction time: 1 minute 56 seconds.

Flavor Profile

Aroma: Nutty fragrance

Hot: Plum and passion fruit acidity with a light fermented fruit note

Mid-palate: Creamy sweetness and nut flavors

Finish: A green-tea sensation and a persistent sugarcane aftertaste

Cooled: Citrus acidity with sweet-and-sour vibrancy

Aftertaste: Rose tea fragrance with light brown-sugar sweetness

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you're just getting into specialty coffee, FrontStreet Coffee recommends starting with an entry-level single origin before chasing rare varieties. For Ethiopia — Africa's largest producer and the recognized birthplace of coffee — try the washed Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative lot, with its jasmine florals, lemon acidity, and berry notes, or the Sidamo Flower Queen, traditionally natural processed and full of berries, florals, jackfruit, melon, and honey.

If honey processing is what draws you — the technique behind this honey-processed Pacamara — Costa Rica is the place to look. The country grows coffee at high altitude with big day-night temperature swings on rich volcanic soil, producing famously hard, high-grown SHB beans. FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Mozart uses raisin honey processing: drying with the mucilage still wrapped around the bean gives the cup abundant sweetness and clarity, with raisin and blueberry sweetness plus osmanthus and rose florals.

That honeyed sweetness is remarkably versatile, too: Mozart performs beautifully as pour-over, cold brew, americano, or latte — an easy, forgiving recommendation for anyone building their first specialty coffee shelf at home.