What are the Characteristics of El Salvador Coffee? Introduction to El Salvador Black Honey Coffee Flavor

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

FrontStreet Coffee Introduction: Salvadoran Coffee

The History of Salvadoran Coffee

El Salvador, known as the "Land of Volcanoes," is the smallest country in Central America. From the mid-17th century, coffee grown here was primarily used for domestic consumption. However, over the next 100 years, coffee gradually became a stable and important crop. Especially in the late 19th century, as El Salvador's original export pillar—indigo (a type of dye) industry—declined due to the development of artificial synthetic dyes in Europe, coffee gradually became the main export product under government leadership.

By the late 1970s, coffee exports accounted for 50% of the country's GDP. However, socio-economic and political turmoil plunged the nation into more than a decade of civil war. In the 1980s, various land redistribution policies and land reforms disconnected the coffee industry, leading to market decline. Due to lack of resources to continue cultivation, coffee producers abandoned their coffee plantations, allowing coffee to grow freely without harvesting—a situation that continued until peace agreements were reached in the 1990s. The only benefit the civil war brought to El Salvador was that in the 1980s (when many other coffee-producing countries were replacing ancient coffee varieties with higher-yield, more disease-resistant ones), farmers left their fields untended, thus preserving the ancient Bourbon and Typica varieties.

When the "Cup of Excellence" competition first came to El Salvador in 2003, the country gained high prestige in the specialty coffee field due to some local specific varieties (ancient Bourbon and Typica, as well as the local dwarf Bourbon variety Pacas, and the hybrid Pacamara). Unfortunately, these famous varieties are particularly susceptible to coffee leaf rust disease. Especially Bourbon (Pacas and Pacamara both have genetic material from Bourbon), which lacks sufficient cold resistance to combat this disease, the country's coffee was affected in the latest outbreak of coffee leaf rust in the 2010s, leading to declines in quality and yield.

Flavor Profile

Compared to Guatemala's small-grain coffee, El Salvador's highest-yielding Bourbon coffee has a relatively mild aroma, with chocolate-like richness being its characteristic. Although Pacamara coffee has a good mouthfeel, it has a sour aroma similar to Typica coffee.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473