El Salvador - Finca El Carmen

Background

This is our second year buying from Fernando Alfero, a fourth generation coffee producer who owns and runs Finca El Carmen with his family. This farm is located in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec region of El Salvador, a prime area for producing specialty coffee, as it lies at the heart of El Salvador’s protected highway of rainforest leading from Mexico down to Panama. At El Carmen, coffees are produced approximately 60% under shade cover, which allows the cherries to ripen evenly. A lot of effort has also gone into making each lot produced traceable from harvest to export.

This year, we found that the processing is much cleaner, which reveals a clean and round acidity supported by lots of chocolatey sweetness, making it really comforting in a milk coffee.