Los Pirineos, El Salvador

A desert-like coffee, with heavy chocolate and butterscotch notes punctuated by a top note of fresh apricot.

La Cabra on Los Pirineos: “The Los Pirineos farm has been in the Baraona family for over 120 years, having been started in 1890. The farm is named for the Pyrenees mountain range that separates France and Spain, as the family thought that the landscape was very similar. The family ran the coffee farms for generations growing lower grade coffee, keeping the family going until the brutal Salvadoran Civil war of the 1980’s. During this period the Baraona family lost 90% of their land, and it fell on the current owner Gilberto to rebuild and refocus efforts on the farm. Gilberto Baraona, a fourth generation coffee producer, who now owns and runs 5 farms. These farms are all located between 1200 and 1550 masl on the Tecapa volcano, just outside the town of Berlin in the Usulutan region of south eastern El Salvador. Los Pirineos is the flagship of the project, with the highest altitude and widest selection of varietals, many rather rare. Gilberto now grows more than 17 varietals, and is a World Coffee Research accredited centre for testing experimental new H1 varietals. These include Geishas, Ethiopian varietals and even a mutated varietal with 7 seeds per cherry, that Gilberto was keen to show us on our visit this year.”