Introduction to El Salvador Santa Rosa Estate Pacamara Anaerobic Process Specialty Coffee

A close look at one of El Salvador's most innovative coffee estates and the experimental honey process that stunned the Cup of Excellence judges.

FrontStreet Coffee - El Salvador Santa Rosa Pacamara Anaerobic Processing

El Salvador Santa Rosa Pacamara Anaerobic/Aerobic Honey Lot No. 27

A micro-batch No. 27 honey-processed Pacamara from El Salvador's Santa Rosa Estate, using a dual anaerobic/aerobic fermentation method with 24 hours of fermentation.

Flavor Description

As soon as the beans are ground, you are greeted by a powerful winey aroma, with notes of rum, passion fruit, and mango.

In the cup, that vinous intensity continues: fruit cocktail, passion fruit juice, and mango, supported by raisin, peach, and floral touches. The flavor is bold and exuberant.

Coffee Details

Country: El Salvador

Region: Chalatenango, La Palma

Estate: Santa Rosa

Producer: Jorge Raul Rivera III

Altitude: 1,600 meters

Variety: Pacamara

Annual Rainfall: Approximately 1,500 - 2,000 mm

GPS: 14.353636, -89.154748

Processing Method: Innovative experimental honey processing

Santa Rosa Estate holds a place in El Salvador much like El Injerto does in Guatemala. Across the Cup of Excellence competitions of the past five years — with the exception of 2016, when the event was not held — Santa Rosa has won two championships, one third place, and one eighth place. Most notably, the winning lot of the 2017 competition drew a bid as high as $95.7 per pound, the highest bid in the history of El Salvador's COE.

That figure was nearly double the top bids of previous years. It was also the first time the estate's current owner, Jorge Raul Rivera, entered with his innovative honey processing method — and it immediately won over the palates of judges and buyers alike, sending shockwaves through the Salvadoran coffee industry.

Santa Rosa was bought by the current owner's father, Jorge Raul Rivera (the same name, 1938-2013), together with his uncle Jose Roberto Rivera, during El Salvador's civil war. Conditions at the time were extraordinarily difficult — and coffee prices were rock bottom — so initially the family did not grow coffee at all.

When the COE decided in 2002 to begin holding competitions in El Salvador, the family saw the opportunity in specialty coffee and committed themselves fully to growing it.

The Riveras are traditional coffee growers with an unshakable devotion to the Pacamara variety — it is the only variety they plant. Sadly, Jorge Raul Rivera passed away in May 2013, just short of witnessing the estate he built win the 2014 COE championship.

His son, Jorge Raul Rivera III, grew up immersed in farm life but went on to receive a formal education and built a complete career in the financial industry — a genuine finance talent. After his father's death in 2013, he took up the mantle, resolutely left everything behind, and devoted himself to the family business and coffee cultivation. Fittingly, he won the Cup of Excellence on his very first attempt in 2014. The story of father and son passing the torch has become another celebrated tale in Salvadoran coffee.

Jorge Raul Rivera III does more than uphold the family's traditions — he builds on them and sets new trends of his own.

Knowledge Extension

Pacamara is a hybrid of the Maragogipe mutation of Typica and the Pacas mutation of Bourbon.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Santa Rosa's experimental honey lot appeals to you, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Blackberry is a natural next step. It uses black honey processing — an approach that strips away almost none of the mucilage — with drying extended to at least two weeks under shade covers to prevent over-rapid drying, so the sugars fully develop. The beans are roasted medium-light and open with an intense fresh floral aroma, followed in the cup by distinctive notes of grape, berry, and ripe blackberry.

For something even more experimental, FrontStreet Coffee's Mozart takes honey processing a step further with raisin honey processing: the whole cherries are pre-dried on raised beds for at least three days before the skin and pulp are removed, with 100% of the mucilage retained — a method even harder to master than black honey. The reward is a richer, sweeter dried-fruit character: osmanthus, pineapple, and raisin, whether brewed as pour-over, cold brew, or moka pot.