El Salvador – Los Naranjos: Washed

About the Coffee

Los Naranjos farm on small 1 – 2 manzana plots of land. Initially the problems the farmers faced in this area included poor plant nutrition, increased occurrence of diseases, poor quantities of production and lack of access to the market. The potential for quality was spotted with producers in this region as they had bourbon and pacas varietals as well as being at altitudes of around 1400m.

Grupo Renacer was thus established in 2019 to work with small producers around the area to improve their crop. The Technical field school which is led by Sigfredo Corado, a retired agronomy professor, had already started to help producers in this region before Renacer was established. Now, he leads a team of 6 field technicians at Renacer to help small to medium producers in the area by focusing on best farm practises that are restorative for the land and soil as well as beneficial for the yield and quality of the coffee. The field school is based at the farm named Finca Noruega where there is a class held twice a month for the students. Throughout the year there are 3 modules and these look to focus on the 4 R’s the program have developed for soil health.

Right Source.
Right Dose.
Right Place.
Right Moment.

All the training takes place at Finca Noruega and the students work the test plots where they can implement the knowledge gained in class before applying it to their own farms. Finca Noruega has 43 Manzanas planted with a range of varieties from bourbon to geisha.

In the first year there were 10 students who were part of the program and with the work they put in the los Naranjos group agreed to centralise their wet milling at Beneficio San Rafael. This has helped the producers create a more uniform and quality controlled coffee to sell together. At the end of the 2019/20 harvest they established a committee of four producers from the group who were elected. This committee would learn about the commercilisation of their coffees and how to cup and market them. They thus have been involved in the process from start to finish and understand the true value of their coffees, helping provide transparency to all members about the quality and prices received.

This coffee is a washed coffee where all cherry is delivered to the San Rafael beneficio. Here the coffees are washed cleaned and floated. The coffee is then pulped and fermented until a suitable pH is reached. After this the coffee is then washed and taken to the raised beds where it is moved for the first three days continuously and then after this for the remaining 7 – 10 days it is moved hourly until below the humidity content is below 11%.