How should Pacamara coffee beans be roasted? Why are Pacamara coffee beans so large?

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The Rare Nicaraguan Pacamara Variety

The rare Pacamara variety is special with limited production. It is an improved variety of Maragogype and Pacamara, developed and improved in the natural environment of El Salvador. Large beans don't necessarily guarantee the best quality. In fact, Nicaraguan Pacamara beans are slightly smaller than Maragogype beans. The Pacamara variety commands a price three times higher than ordinary beans locally, making it as precious as pearls. This is an exceptionally well-balanced bean! City roast brings out the best characteristics. Dry aroma: sweet fruit notes; wet aroma: berry fragrance, with gentle acidity and subtle sweetness.

The Birth of Pacamara

This legendary variety features unique plant morphology and green bean appearance—huge leaves, tall tree structure, enormous green beans... earning it the title of El Salvador's eccentric variety.

It once remained obscure, even when it first appeared in the 2003/2004 Cup of Excellence competition, judges were hesitant to give high scores due to its unusually peculiar flavor profile...

It wasn't until 2005's Cup of Excellence that it began to shine brightly. In 2006, it swept the top four positions in El Salvador's Cup of Excellence. From 2008 to 2010, the Pacamara from Finca Injerto dominated Guatemala's Cup of Excellence, winning the championship for three consecutive years!

From that moment, it established its position as a leader in the green coffee world—unlike naturally evolved varieties such as Geisha, Bourbon, and Typica, the Pacamara variety was not naturally evolved or naturally hybridized, but rather cultivated by a group of outstanding Salvadoran coffee breeders!

In 1958, more than half a century ago, the Genetics and Breeding Department of the Salvadoran Coffee Research Institute (ISIC) first crossed the Bourbon variety—Pacas—with the Typica variety—Maragogype...

Since crossing two pure lines produces F1 offspring with numerous heterozygous gene pairs (simply put, a very impure bloodline), multiple generations of self-pollination were required to separate traits and purify genes...

Each generation of self-pollination had to begin with manual pollination, followed by seedling cultivation, planting, and growth to maturity... This process alone took 3-4 years! Additionally, measuring the performance of numerous variant offspring individuals and selecting potential lines with desirable traits was even more time-consuming and labor-intensive...

Then more self-pollination, cultivation to maturity, and selection... After five generations (F5), thirty years had passed—nearly consuming the entire career of a young breeding expert—before this variety could finally be developed!

However, in reality, because it underwent only five generations of self-pollination purification, the new variety still contains a small number of heterozygous gene pairs. Consequently, some traits of Pacamara still occasionally separate and exhibit characteristics from either Pacas or Maragogype...

FrontStreet Coffee's Pacamara Coffee Roasting Recommendations

Guatemala SHB coffee beans possess high hardness. To allow them to fully develop and express their flavors while maintaining Guatemala coffee's excellent acidity, a "acid development" approach can be adopted during roasting—increase the heat at the yellowing point, keeping the temperature curve climbing steeply to achieve the goal of enhancing aroma and promoting crack development. Higher temperature rise also helps eliminate some peppery notes. When first crack becomes dense, reduce the heat for "sweetness enhancement" to develop sweet flavors. Before dropping the beans, turn off the heat and allow for coasting to increase body and maturity. The smoky notes in Huehuetenango become more pronounced at darker roast levels, and combined with Pacamara's peppery characteristics, a lighter roast degree should be adopted. Therefore, we designed a roast that drops the beans after developing about 13 degrees into first crack, placing the coffee beans near the end of first crack, belonging to the light roast category.

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