The story
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, and the importer Cafe Imports notes it is often called "the land of volcanoes". Coffee was grown there from the mid-1700s, mostly for local drinking. It became a major export in the late 1800s, when cheap synthetic dyes undercut indigo, the country's old cash crop. The trader Sucafina says that by the 1920s coffee made up 90 percent of exports, and that by the 1970s El Salvador was the world's fourth-largest producer.
Coffee wealth was held by a small landowning elite for decades. The civil war from 1979 to 1992 badly damaged the industry, and many farms were left untended. Land reform after the war broke up large estates. Sucafina says 95 percent of growers now farm fewer than 20 hectares.
Those neglected years had an unexpected side effect. Cafe Imports explains that while other countries replaced older, lower-yielding plants with hardier ones in the 1980s, many Salvadoran farms kept their old trees. So the country still grows a lot of Bourbon: Sucafina puts it at about 60 percent of the trees. Interest from specialty buyers grew after the Cup of Excellence competition arrived in 2003.
Two well-known varieties come from El Salvador. Pacas is a natural dwarf mutation of Bourbon, found in 1949 on a farm owned by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana area, according to World Coffee Research (WCR). Its small size lets farmers plant trees closer together. WCR says it makes up about 25 percent of the country's production. Pacamara is a cross between Pacas and Maragogipe, a plant with very large beans, bred by the Salvadoran coffee research institute ISIC. WCR rates its quality potential at high altitude as exceptional and says it often does well in Cup of Excellence. Caturra and Catuaí are grown too.
The same old varieties are prone to coffee leaf rust, a fungus. An outbreak in the early 2010s hit hard: Cafe Imports says yields fell by as much as half in places, and Sucafina says export revenue dropped 20 percent between 2011 and 2013. Output has fallen for two decades, and many farmers now aim for quality over volume.
Coffee grows on volcanic mountain ranges. A guide in Perfect Daily Grind lists six: Apaneca-Ilamatepec, Alotepec-Metapán, El Bálsamo-Quezaltepec, Chinchontepec, Tecapa-Chinameca and Cacahuatique. Santa Ana, in Apaneca-Ilamatepec, is the largest and best-known area, and Chalatenango is singled out for Pacamara. Cafe Imports lists the export grades by altitude: Strictly High Grown (SHG) from 1,200 metres, High Grown from 900 to 1,200, and Central Standard from 500 to 900.
How it's processed
A coffee bean is the seed of a small fruit, the cherry. Once picked, the fruit must come off and the seed must dry, and the method affects the taste.
Cafe Imports lists washed coffee as the main method in El Salvador. In a washed coffee the fruit is removed before drying, which usually gives a cleaner cup. Sucafina notes that the practice of soaking coffee in water after washing has become common, and many producers believe it improves quality.
Natural coffees, dried with the whole fruit on, are not new here. Sucafina says that in the 1970s the country made naturals for the German market. Over the last decade or so producers have also tried honey coffees, where some of the sticky fruit layer stays on during drying, and other experimental methods.
Drying is helped by the weather. Sucafina says the long dry season usually falls during the harvest, which makes sun-drying easier. Most coffee dries on clay patios, and raised beds have become more common. More than 90 percent of the coffee grows under shade trees, which slow the ripening of the cherries.
The sources give slightly different harvest seasons: Cafe Imports says November to April, Sucafina October to March.
What it tastes like
There is no single Salvadoran flavour, but the varieties give some clues. In the Perfect Daily Grind guide, local exporters describe Bourbon as chocolatey, sweet and versatile, and Pacamara as often showing tropical, even exotic, fruit flavours. Bourbon is said to need altitude to show its full quality.
Processing changes the picture as well. A washed Bourbon and a natural Pacamara from the same farm can taste quite different, so the tasting notes on each coffee are a better guide than any rule for the country.