Coffee Goods
El Salvador, Finca El Salvador
El Salvador, Finca El Salvador
Notes: Mango, papaya, pomelo, blackberry & dried plum.
Origin: El Salvador, Santa Ana, 1640 masl
Producer: Rodolfo Ruffatti
Coffea: Arabica
Variety: Red Bourbon
Process: Anaerobic Natural
The Ruffatti family moved to El Salvador long ago from Turin, Italy. Their farm, Finca El Salvador has been in their family now for five generations. Currently it is represented by our dear friend Rodolfo. And Rodolfo has been up to some very impressive things including shifting the farm's focus to exotic varieties like Sudan Rume and various styles of fermentation. This lot however is made up of pure Red Bourbon.
The Red Bourbon variety is planted at 1640 masl. In the past this altitude was too cold for these plants but due to climate change it became possible, if not necessary. To give you some back story on the variety… In 1859, Bourbon seeds arrived in Brazil upon the order of the Brazilian central government after hearing that coffee growing on the island of Reunion, then called Bourbon, had higher yields and cup quality than the Typica variety, commonly grown in Brazil. Now that the Yellow Bourbon variety exists, the original Bourbon is referred to as Red Bourbon. In the 1930’s, different strains of Red Bourbon were bred at the Campinas Agronomic Institute (IAC) in the state of Sao Paulo and distributed to farmers in 1939. And so it spread around the world including El Salvador.
As Rodolfo got more interested in different varieties, he also started experimenting with ways of unlocking more and more flavor diversity within them. One of the ways this is pursued is with a process referred to as anaerobic fermentation. And while all fermentation is anaerobic, what this term describes is an added step of placing coffee in vessels without the presence of oxygen and in highly controlled environments where the microbes participating in the process can be used more intentionally.
This lot incorporates this method. The coffee cherries have been placed in tanks for 120h and fermented in an oxygen free environment before being dried as a natural. This created a fruit forward profile reminiscent of blood orange, papaya, blackberry and dried prune.