El Salvador - Diego Baraona - Pacamara Black Honey

This lot is of the legendary Pacamara variety which originated in El Salvador. This cross was developed by the Salvadoran Institute of Coffee Research by pollinating flowers of the Pacas and Maragogype varieties. The genetics of Maragygpe lend Pacamara it's unusually largely sized beans. Pacas, on the other hand is a selected mutation of bourbon first discovered in El Salvador. This makes Pacamara the poster child of El Salvador and arguably the best Pacamara's in the world come from El Salvador. 

Unfortunately, the process of developing the plant was never officially finished. Which makes it a genetically unstable variety. This implicates that upon planting it's seed a farmer will usually get a mix of Pacas, Maragogype and Pacamara plants. At Los Pirineos some of the first trials were done to test pacamara in the field. This had allowed Diego's late father, Gilberto, to privately pursue an improved genetic stability of Pacamara. Nowadays Los Pirineos is the only farm providing stabilized Pacamara seeds to cofee farmers around the world. It earned Gilberto the title: "King of Pacamara" for his exemplary work of advancing this cross, promoting it and gaining the whole country of El Salvador fame for it's exceptional quality. 

This lot underwent the black honey processing. In this process the seeds are removed from the cherry very gentle in a dedicated depulper that does not use water. This way all the mucilage, the honey like sweet substance attached to the seeds, remains in tact. Coffee is fermented in the sun for two days in thick piles, promoting fermentation and slowly drying out the mucilage. Afterwards the sticky parchment is transferred to shaded drying beds where the coffee can gently dry for up to forty days. In this period the mucilage firmly sticks to the parchment of the beans creating it's signature black colour. 

In roasting this coffee we started the roast very gently to evenly dry out the beans. The large shape of the beans require a gentle start of the roast to dry out the beans evenly. The beans are then further roasted with little heat application to 197 degrees in approximately eleven and a half minutes. This coffee is best prepared as filter coffee with a 1:16 coffee to water ratio. We find a complex balance between sweetness of cardamom and cane sugar and acidity reminiscent of green apple and white grapes.