Finca El Salvador — Pacamara / 72hr Maceration

Origin

This coffee comes to us from Rodolfo Ruffatti, a producer we have been working with since the beginning of Ten Belles Coffee. His farm, Finca El Salvador, has been in the Ruffatti family for 4 generations. Over the years, we have bought several different lots from Finca El Salvador, and Rodolfo keeps this particular coffee, as well as the FES 14 Screen, specifically for Ten Belles. El Salvador has become known for its bright and expressive natural processed coffees over the years, and Rodolfo is one of its producers who has come to master the balance between achieving a funky coffee while avoiding one that is too fermenty or simply one-dimensional in its flavour profile.

Project

Before drying as a natural process, this coffee is ‘macerated in cherry’. This means that before depulping, the coffee cherries have been left to rest in low oxygen conditions, where the cherries ferment and the lack of oxygen leads the fruit to break down into different microorganisms than usual. The result of this is more funky and fermenty fruit flavours, many of which are not typically present in traditionally processed coffees. This method is one of Rodolfo’s signature fermentation techniques and the resultant cup profile stands as testament to his renowned abilities.

Coffee

This particular coffee is the Pacamara variety, a coffee that is highly sought after due to its excellent cup quality, so long as it is grown at higher altitudes and is kept safe from coffee tree diseases. Full-bodied with violet florals and grape sweetness, what we love about this coffee is that it has the trademark funky profile of the carbonic maceration process, whilst retaining the complex sweetness of the pacamara variety.