Coffee was actually introduced to El Salvador in 1740 and a lot of the farms I visited date back to the mid-1800s and are being worked by fifth and sixth generations of the founding families. One thing I didn’t realize is that up until the early 1970s, El Salvador was the third largest coffee producer in the world. Decades of civil war devastated the coffee industry (and almost everything else there) but coffee is making a strong comeback. That’s not to say the road back has been easy. The 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck in January of 2001 caused widespread destruction, dealing a severe blow to the nation’s fragile economy. Coffee farmers there have to deal with extremely high winds that, on occasion, cause extensive damage to their crops. Volcanic eruptions, especially from the massive Santa Ana volcano in the far western part of the country, have left large swaths of land covered in ash at various points in the decade.

Okay, that’s the bad news. The good news is that the growers, led by the El Salvador Coffee Council, are staking their hopes for building a thriving coffee economy on establishing a reputation for growing superior beans. One thing they’ve definitely got going for them is the fact that El Salvador is known as a grower of heirloom varietals. Maybe more than anywhere else in this part of the coffee-growing world, El Salvador has been able to maintain the genetic distinctiveness of the beans they grow. Ironically, this was due, in part, to the civil war which effectively isolated the country economically for over a decade when growers in other coffee producing nations were reducing the diversity of their crops by switching to a limited set of higher-producing varietals.

By far, the dominant varietal in El Salvador is the Bourbon which makes up 68% of the crops. One of the most interesting beans (and one that’s getting a lot of attention, for good reason) in the specialty coffee world, is the Pacamara. This bean is a cross between the Pacas (native to El Salvador and one of the leading varietals after Bourbon) and the Maragogype which is distinguished by it’s HUGE size and full flavor. The resulting hybrid is a bit smaller than it’s mammoth cousin and is one of the most sought after beans on the market today.

My trip through El Salvador covered some of the major coffee growing regions beginning in the El Balsamo Mountain Range (not far from the capital San Salvador) where we visited the farm operated by the Aguilar family. Don Eugenia Aguilar is a fifth-generation coffee farmer who takes obvious pride in his coffee and in the fact the he provides education, housing and health care to the employees on his farm. Located on the northeast slope of the San Salvador volcano, his coffee grows at elevations between 3900 and 5200 feet. At his farm I took the opportunity to pick and eat fruit right off the tree. It was wonderfully sweet. Sweet you say? Yes, for those that may not be aware, the coffee bean is the seed of a cherry. The mucilage (or fruit) that surrounds the bean is not unlike a normal cherry. However, within the coffee cherry, the “pit” (or bean) is much larger so there is less fruit to “nosh on.” From the Aguilar’s, we visited farms in the Apaneca-Hamatepec mountain range and then moved on to the Alotepec Metapan region which, while not known for high yields, has produced more than it’s share of Cup of Excellence winners over the past few years (for more info see www.cupofexcellence.com).

One of the things that really struck me about these farmers was their dedication to traditional growing methods. Almost every farm we visited employed shade-growing (actually, 97% of coffee in the country is shade-grown), taking advantage of the frequent, strong winds that blow across the countryside. Shade growing favors the formation of microclimates, allowing beans to reach optimal ripeness and also helps to preserve wildlife and biodiversity. The strong winds allow the farmers to plant in shade knowing that the fruit will receive intermittent sunshine as the trees sway and let the light through. Farmers took this one step further, strategically pruning their trees to allow just the right amount of light through. Most harvesting in El Salvador is done between December and March. Typically, three passes through the farm are made (on a monthly basis) in order to pick the ripest fruit. Although it is hard to describe, the perfect ripeness of the cherry is achieved when it is maduro (Spanish for a dark burgundy red). It is very important for the color to be right as this will translate directly into the flavor of the cup. Interestingly, another technique used for determing whether the fruit was ready to pick was to take a cherry and squeeze it very carefully over the palm of the hand. If the fruit yielded 4-5 drops of juice, then it was ready for picking.

Another sign that things are looking up for El Salvador’s coffee is the fact that younger farmers are seeing an opportunity and staking their futures on coffee growing. In the past decade older farmers have been worried about the fact that the next generation didn’t seem to be interested in keeping the family farms going but I met a number of younger farmers on this visit who firmly believed that El Salvador has a bright future in coffee and selling really great tasting coffee has a lot to do with it.

We introduced our first Salvadoran coffee late last year and it was such a huge hit and we were so excited by the taste that we’re bringing it on as a regular bean in our lineup. To celebrate, we’re making the new crop Pacamara bean from the Las Delicias farm our Roaster’s Pick for March (see below) and carrying it regularly after that.

Keep on cupping!!

—Steve

Malawi “Mapanga”
This is one of those coffees that varies wildly from year to year and from processor to processor. One of our brokers who grew up in Africa offered us this coffee when it first became available, knowing how special it was. It took us a while to cup it, but when we did we frantically called back, hoping it wasn’t sold out.

We fell in love with it. It’s very full-bodied yet easy going. It has a pleasant lightly floral/herbal aroma. For me, the coffee had a very rich (almost buttery) mouthfeel, an light caramel note and a very clean finish. The combination of big body and crisp finish is fantastic.

After years of rebuilding (with help from a UN-funded project lead by a professor at MSU), Rwanda is producing many fine coffees. We’re in the process of sourcing the right one for us. Last year we liked one from a coffee in the district of Gikongoro which borders Burundi to the south.

We’re also hearing reports of good quality starting to emerge from Burundi. The East African Fine Coffee Association always exhibits at the SCAA conference. The coffee from Burundi has been good but hard to get due to the political climate. New UN programs should help this.

It’s only a few weeks ago I finished up an article for a business magazine about what (my partner) Paul has long referred to as “Natural Laws of Business.” (Happy to send you a copy if you like - email me at zingtrain@zingermans.com.) One of the ones on the list (#10 to be exact) is that “It generally takes a lot longer to make something great happen than people think.” To build a really sustainable business generally takes a long time, a lot of ups and downs, a strong vision and the stubbornness and determination to stick with it through all the dissonance, distraction and dissatisfaction that confronts all positive change in the making.

With that in mind, I give enormous credit to anyone who makes meaningful, lasting change like that a reality. Which is why I’m so fascinated - in good ways - with the work of one of our best coffee suppliers, the folks from Daterra, down in the Cerrado region (in the State of Minas Gerais) of central Brazil.

Daterra dates back to the 1980’s, when the De Paschoal family decided that they wanted to develop a business that would be more ecologically and socially sustainable than the tire trade in which they’d done very well over the decades. The family’s roots in Brazil and in business are long ones - the grandfather of current owner, Luis Norberto Paschoal, came to South American from Italy intending to be a coffee grower. He ended up opening a specialty food shop, which became the foundation of the family business. Decades later they ended up in the tire trade. The coffee business grew from their commitment to find a work that would create and sell something unique to Brazil, a business that would help their country, its people, and its amazing environment.

To quote Luis when he was up here last fall, “Daterra is a not a farm. Daterra is a project. It’s a coffee concept.” He shook his head, stopped for a second, looked me long in the eye and then went on. “Sustainability,” he said with great seriousness, “plus quality. This is what the customer wants. At the end, every customer wants quality and sustainability. Nobody will say, ‘I’m against that.’ The problem is how to put the two together.”

Thinking about what Daterra is doing reminds me of one of those obscure subsets of history that I love - the utopian socialist movement of the 19th century in Europe - a series of idealistic attempts to create positive small, “utopian” communities (most which pretty much failed, unfortunately). And while Daterra has been made possible only because of very successful capitalism, they are, nevertheless, creating a quality-oriented, environmentally responsible, cooperative and caring community of the sort that the utopian socialists imagined. And they’re doing it in an industry - coffee - that’s not generally known for those sorts of things.

We’ve been working with Luis and the staff at Daterra ever since we started the Zingerman’s Coffee Company four and a half years ago. Allen (managing partner and coffee roaster) spec’ed their beans for our Espresso Blend #1 right from the get go. I appreciate the wisdom of his choice every time I enjoy an espresso at the Deli or the Roadhouse. It is, obviously, highly recommended for espresso making. But the blend is actually also excellent brewed with a filter or in a press pot. We have the Espresso Blend #1 brewed at the Bakehouse every day so try some next time you’re out there.

I also love their Sweet Yellow coffee - it’s made from a series of very special yellow (not green) bean varietals (Bourbon, Catoise and Caturra) that they’ve spent years working on. The brewed cup is subtly sweet, elegant, very nutty, and very smooth, almost buttery, with lots of high notes with a really long finish with a light touch of chocolatiness that’s not at all bitter.

But in the moment I’m most excited about the exceedingly limited, exceptionally lovely (if also way big expensive) Opus 1. The supply of this stuff is so limited that I’m wary of even bringing it up here. There are only something like 50 boxes for the whole world. I’m grateful we got any at all! For all I know by the time you read this we’ll already have sold the little we got. (I guess though it’s not too soon to reserve yours for next year.) Among the only other American spots that have it are Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in Napa.

“The Opus story is a very crazy one,” Luis related during a visit last month. “Back in 1954 Madagascar sent some samples of new coffee plant genetics to Ethiopia. In 1964, this plant, racemosa, which never hybrids with Arabica, was then sent from Ethiopia to Brazil [where] they had to be in quarantine for two or three months to make sure there was no new disease. They were all together in one small plantation but one plant in the nursery cross-fertilized with Arabica. One researcher saw this plant was different and he checked and he saw that it had more chromosomes. That one single plant was crossed with the Bourbon coffee that is grown in Brazil. And that plant became aramosa (as in “Arabica” + “Racemosa”), then later it came to be called guarani for the Indian tribe Tupy-Guarani.

“In 1993, we made a contract with this research center to have in our farm one area to research all the varieties that they had. So we started to research. Every year we planted 470 plants. Of those you take 17 that produce well and 17 that have good taste, and you cross them. Then we wait two and half years, plant again, and when you finally get to the fifth generation you’ve dropped what is called ‘non-conformable trees’ down from 80 percent to about 20 percent and that’s when you have commercially viable production. This year we could have our first crop…just twelve 132-pound bags. That’s it. After cleaning it was only ten bags. This is Opus 1.”

Like I said, Rule #10 says that it takes a lot longer to make something great happen than most people realize. Opus 1 coffee qualifies on both counts - very long in the making and very special. The coffee is noteworthy in this context, simply because of how many years of careful, patient work it’s taken to have it available for sale, even in these super limited quantities.

But beyond its story, the Opus is amazing for two reasons. The first is the one most everyone else seems to be talking about most - Opus 1 is naturally low in caffeine. Don’t read this wrong - Opus 1 is not a decaf. It’s a bean that just has a LOT less caffeine - about 30 percent of what’s found in most coffees. That’s a nice thing. But while everyone else is all wound up about that, what I’m actually more excited about is how great it tastes. It’s pretty special stuff - light, nutty, notably floral, really delicious.

A versatile espresso with a pungent authority that should serve particularly well in big milk drinks. Slightly spicy, apricot- or mango-toned fruit in the deeply sweet-impressioned aroma.

See the full review here

They’re also quite flexible. A good Ethiopian can lend some fruitiness to a sweet espresso blend and at the same time can be roasted lighter for a bright and lively drip coffee. Our Yirgachaffe is wonderful with our lighter roast. It has a lemony, dark berry flavor when roasted lightly.

We’ve carried quite a few East African coffees in the last 3 years including Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia and Uganda. We taste many more than we carry because, frankly, there is a lot of variability from year to year. Some years we don’t find anything we like from a particular region but when we do find one, we make sure we get our hands on it.

Conditions on the Ground
The coffee crop from Africa is certainly affected by the political strife in many of the producing nations. Coffee is often THE major export and source of economic growth for
the rebuilding of these countries. For a great article on the current coffee situation in Africa, click here.

The two 91-rated espressos, Fieldheads Espresso Decaf and Zingerman’s Detroit St. Decaf (a Guatemala single-origin) situated themselves at opposing but complementary poles of expression: The Fieldheads was mildly roasty but quiet, smooth and silkily complete. The Zingerman’s decaf Guatemala, rather than understating its roastiness, proclaimed it with pungent, milk-mastering emphasis.

Click to read the entire article.

What’s new in the world of Zingerman’s Coffee Company?
The coffee from El Carmen Estate in Panama is new and fantastic. It came in 3rd overall at the Rainforest Alliance cupping in March. It’s a very clean cup, with a mild, citrusy floral quality and sweet soft cocoa tones. It feels like a light bodied coffee but has very strong flavors and leaves the palate clean. We liked this one so much we’re putting it on special for TWO months starting in September.

What should we look for this fall?
I’m looking to broaden our line of coffees. Specifically, I’m working to bring in Costa Rican coffees. I have some nice samples in from some small (and organic) farms. I’m also have a promising sample from a VERY small estate in Guatemala with whom we would direct import. Guatemalan coffees are one of our staples, so we’ll have to look at this one carefully. We’ll be carrying some Mexican coffees which are known for their fruity, floral sweetness. They make very nice espresso. And we’re looking at a very promising Kenyan coffee. Great Kenyan coffees are known for their spectacular brightness. A defining characteristic is that they taste distinctly of black currant.

What makes the coffee from ZCC different from most?
Our first criteria is taste. We focus our efforts on bringing out the best characteristics of the beans. We roast in batches small enough so we can see the coffee in all its stages. We don’t just slit bags into a grate in the floor and collect it when it’s roasted. We won’t stock a coffee year to year just because we’ve had it in the past. We taste and select each year based on what’s really good.

Some of your coffees carry the Rainforest Alliance (RFA) certification. Why is that important?
I like RFA because they are improving the quality of coffee in a holistic fashion. That is, they aren’t just concerned with getting coffee that tastes great but they also strive to make sure that farmers and co-ops are fairly compensated and they work to improve the environment in which RFA coffee is grown.

What else would you like us to know?
That coffee is a cyclical crop. It changes from year to year which is part of the fun. We are always evaluating new coffees and re-evaluating the coffees we carry. Think of fresh coffee like fresh bread. Stop in once a week and pick up a 1/2 pound and use it fresh. You really can taste difference.

See full article here.