El Salvador Coffee Varieties and Flavor Characteristics

FrontStreet Coffee: Introduction to El Salvador Coffee Varieties

First cultivated in 1958 by researchers in El Salvador, Pacamara is a remarkable achievement of artificial selection that outperforms both of its parent varieties. It inherits the best of each: the excellent flavor profile of Pacas combined with the oversized beans of Maragogipe. The beans reach at least 70-80% the size of elephant beans, with 100% at screen size 17 or above and 90% at screen size 18 or above. Average bean length is 1.03 cm (versus about 0.8-0.85 cm for ordinary beans), average width is 0.71 cm (versus about 0.6-0.65 cm), with a thickness of 0.37 cm — full, rounded beans overall. The variety's most distinctive trait is its lively, sophisticated acidity — sometimes carrying biscuit aromas, sometimes fruity notes — along with excellent body and mouthfeel. The finest Pacamara is produced in El Salvador and Guatemala.

Pacamara beans are long, full, and round, averaging 1.03 cm in length. Though smaller than true elephant beans, they dwarf ordinary coffee beans, and the lots selected for export are typically screen size 18 or above. Pacamara is an outstanding variety rarely achieved through deliberate breeding; production once reached 3.225 million bags (60 kg per bag), though output has since declined significantly.

Kenya SL-28 is one of the two most respected varieties developed in the 1930s by Kenya's Scott Laboratories. Although Scott Laboratories no longer exists, its work lives on at the National Agricultural Laboratory, part of the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization. Both famous SL varieties are Bourbon derivatives, though from different lineages: SL-28 was bred from drought-resistant varieties originally planted in Tanganyika, in modern-day Tanzania. It is generally considered the highest quality of the family, though its yields are lower than other commercial Arabica varieties.

This SL variant has bronze-colored young leaves. Its yield falls short of expectations, but the copper-hued foliage and broad bean shape deliver wonderful sweetness, balance, and complex, varied flavors, with pronounced citrus and plum characteristics. In the cup it shows strong, rich fruit acidity, a full body, and beautiful balance.

Flavor: fragrant with berry scents; the entry reveals citrus, berries, and lemon, with a subtle herbal finish. The aftertaste carries nutty cream aromas, and the overall mouthfeel is clean and bright.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the SL-28 section caught your eye, FrontStreet's Kenya "Little Tomato" lets you taste the variety at its best. This Kenyan washed specialty coffee comes from the Thika growing region, planted at 1,550-1,750 meters with the classic local pairing of SL28 and SL34, producing plump, rounded beans. Processing uses Kenya's signature 72-hour double-washed fermentation to draw out the fruit character while keeping the cup impeccably clean, and FrontStreet's light roast preserves the lively acidity and layered fruit.

The dry fragrance alone offers dried cherry tomato and floral notes; the entry brings clear cherry tomato and smoked plum flavors with a bright, firm acidity as full as fresh-squeezed juice. Mid-palate sweetness comes with fresh notes of snow pear and black plum, finishing clean and long with yellow-sugar sweetness and a whisper of green tea. It is a superb showcase of what SL28 can do — the same citrus-and-plum brilliance described above, in its most vivid form.