Introducing: El Salvador Cerro Las Ranas, San Ramon
Altitude: 1450+
Processing: Semi-Washed
Harvest: Nov-Mar
Cup profile: A well-balanced coffee, light with acidic fruitiness, notes of nectarine & orange, chocolatey taste.
The San Fransico farm is part of the Jasal Group, the farm itself belongs to Jose Antonio Salaverria, and is situated amongst the Apaneca Ilamatepec mountain range, part of the Cordelliera de Apeneca. This Volcanic range runs through the Ahuachapan, Santa Ana, and Sonsodate departments in the West of El Salvador, and is where many of the Cup of Excellence producing farms are located. Three of the four volcanoes that occur within this range of mountains are situated within the national park; Cerro Verde, Izalco and Ilamatepec (also known as Santa Ana). Izalcois the youngest of the volcanoes and was called the lighthouse of the pacific for being almost continually erupting from its birth in 1770 until 1966.
The farm itself is part of a national forest reserve which, at its highest point has a lagoon that is home to thousands of frogs, which, at certain times of the year are to be found across the farm. So ubiquitous that the symbol for the Jasal group is a frog, and the coffee name Ranas translates to English, with Cerro translating to Mountain or Hill. So the coffee is called “Frog Mountain.
Coffees are milled at the groups Benficio Las Cruces, located in nearby Santa Ana. Despite being an historic processing centre with over 100 years behind it, it has been regularly updated to and is currently renovated to contain wet and dry processing facilities, along with eco-friendly equipment, raised African beds, patios, and drying equipment.
For the semi-washed coffee, or pulp natural, cherries duplicated and moved ot the drying tables via water channels. This tends to be because a slightly larger volume is de-pulped at one time, as in the instance, an entire plot on the farm. The brief contact with water slightly reduces the % of mucilage on the bean, and therefore affects the final flavour in the cup. This differs from the honey process for the farm in that honey process has no contact with water and is therefore processed in much smaller plots.