El Salvador Santa Ana Washed SHG/EP 2023

El Salvador Coffee | Santa Ana Region

Santa Ana is known for producing some of El Salvador’s best coffee. The region's fertile volcanic soil and ideal climate provide perfect growing conditions for high-quality Arabica coffee beans. Coffees from Santa Ana display a smooth, well-balanced flavor profile with notes of chocolate, caramel, and bright acidity.

This green coffee comes from small producers whose farms dot the mountainous slopes of Santa Ana. Coffee farmers here grow two of El Salvador’s most popular varieties: Bourbon and Pacas. This coffee’s flavors include cocoa powder, golden raisin, brown spice, and nougat, complemented by a soft acidity and light body.

Quality El Salvador Green Coffee

Strictly High Grown (SHG) coffee signifies that the coffee was grown above 1,200 meters. Higher elevations mean slower coffee cherry and bean development, leading to more nutrient density and more flavor. The challenges associated with production at higher elevations encourage higher standards to streamline labor logistics for the best possible crop quality, particularly for the smaller volume yielded from the slow-growing process.

In addition to being hand sorted with European Preparation (EP) standards for less than eight defects per 300 grams of beans, the labor-intensive processes involved in producing this coffee result in a consistently high-quality clean cup.

Washed Process Coffee in El Salvador

Most of the coffee produced by El Salvador undergoes “washed” or “wet” processing. Coffee cherries are floated and sorted to ensure consistent ripeness and to remove any defective cherries. The seeds (coffee beans) are then removed from their skins using depulping machines and typically moved to fermentation tanks to remove the mucilage—the remaining fruit remnants. Afterward, the coffee is dried until it reaches the optimal moisture level.

Washed processing has become widely popular. The cup profile of washed coffees tends to reflect the terroir of the coffee. The processing method allows the growing conditions, the region, and the true character of the coffee to shine through.

El Salvador Coffee Production

El Salvador might be the smallest country in Central America, but the green coffee beans are renowned for their high-quality. That said, the El Salvador is struggling due to climate change, increased cost of labor and fertilizer, as well as much needed investment at the farm level. The USDA expects the 23/24 El Salvador crop to reach 670,000 60kg bags.

El Salvador’s unroasted coffee plays an important balancing role in creating blends because of the association with mellow flavor intensity, but innovative farming and processing methods can also produce colorful and complex flavors that are lively on their own.