El Salvador Catracha Coffee Introduction to El Salvador Catracha Black Honey Process Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee - El Salvador Guarumal Estate Caturra Black Honey Process

El Salvador Black Honey

Estate: Finca El Guarumal

Variety: Caturra

Altitude: 1250m

Processing Method: Black Honey Process

Grade: SHB

El Salvador is known as the "Land of Volcanoes." Located between Honduras and Guatemala, with the Pacific Ocean to the south, its terrain consists mainly of mountains and plateaus. The volcanic zones are rich in minerals, which is highly favorable for coffee cultivation, as the volcanic soil nurtures high-quality coffee trees.

El Salvador has five main coffee-producing regions: Apaneca, Central Belt, Chichontepec, Tecapa & Cacahuatique Mountain Range. These regions are generally distributed in high-altitude mountain slopes or plateau areas above 1,200 meters, covered with volcanic ash. Most of the coffee is grown using shade-grown methods. The advantage of this approach is that coffee beans can mature uniformly, with increased mucilage content, higher weight, and enhanced opportunities for sweet polyphenol formation, allowing the main components of coffee beans to fully develop. Coffee trees exposed to too much sunlight will have curled leaf edges, causing moisture loss, which is detrimental to photosynthesis, reduces carbon dioxide absorption, and decreases sugar formation.

The main coffee varieties cultivated in El Salvador include Typica, Bourbon, Pacas, and Pacamara.

Variety

Caturra is a natural variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its tree is smaller and less tall than Bourbon, making it more convenient for harvesting. It has strong adaptability and doesn't require shade trees - it can thrive directly under intense sunlight, commonly known as "Sun Coffee." Although it inherits Bourbon's bloodline and therefore has relatively weak disease resistance, its yield is higher than Bourbon.

Caturra is suitable for cultivation in low-altitude areas of 700 meters to high-altitude areas of 1700 meters. It has strong altitude adaptability, but the higher the altitude, the better the flavor, though the production capacity relatively decreases.

Processing Method

The honey processing method first appeared in Costa Rica in Central America. Initially, it was mainly because some high-altitude areas in Central America lacked water resources. Therefore, after using pulp sieving machines on coffee cherries, they were dried together with the pulp mucilage under the sun. It is a processing method between the natural (sun-dried) method and the washed method.

It allows coffee to retain the cleanliness of the washed method and, because it is dried together with the pulp mucilage, greatly increases the sweetness and caramel flavor of the coffee. This processing method can reduce the acidity of coffee beans and provide more delicate aromas.

According to the degree of mucilage removal, the length of sun-drying time (or thickness of drying), and the frequency of turning during drying, honey processing is further divided into black honey, red honey, orange honey, yellow honey, and white honey.

According to the degree of mucilage removal:

Black Honey: Almost no mucilage is removed, so it takes the longest to dry, requiring more than 14 days continuously. During the process, to avoid drying too quickly, coverings are used to block excessive sunlight, allowing for more thorough sugar conversion.

Red Honey: 25% of mucilage is removed (specific practices vary among estates), sun-dried for about 12 days, and shade covers may also be used during the process.

Yellow Honey: 40% of mucilage is removed, dried with maximum sunlight exposure, lasting about 8 days.

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