Gloria Imelda Portillo - El Salvador - Extended Fermentation Washed

Importer: Caravela

Varietal: Pacas

Process: Extended washed

Price Paid: €11.6/kg

FOB: US$5.45/lb

Farm Gate: US$2.44/lb

Tasting Notes:

Aroma: chocolate, dates, dried fruits, candied walnut
Flavor: Caramel, Panela, Wine gum, Hazelnut, Plum

Body: Juicy when hot, syrupy when warm and cold

Sweetness: Very high

Celebrating the festive season with this El Salvadorian delicacy and cheering to coffee being a people's business!

We chose this coffee because one of our team members caught up with an old friend who works now for the importer Caravela. We always had good memories of the times we worked with them a couple of years ago, but our focus and sourcing has limited our selections, in a good way. But when Rodolfo got in touch and when we had great talks about ours and Caravela's values, we knew it totally makes sense to give it a go again.

So excited to share with you this coffee from El Salvador. The farm is run by Gloria Imelda Portillo and her husband. She joined the growers education program by Caravela in 2016 and has managed to increase her quality and value of her harvest over the years. The most important part of our industry is to always share and give knowledge in order for others to succeed and thrive within their means. That is unfortunately not common practice yet.

Here are some words about the processing by Caravela:

Currently, when processing the coffees, Gloria focuses on picking the coffee cherries at their optimal ripeness, and since the pulper is equipped with a sieve, the wet parchment goes through a screen-sizing phase to obtain a more homogeneous batch. After this, the coffee ferments for 12 hours and depending on the weather conditions fermentation can extend to 16 or 18 hours. After washing the coffee, the drying phase for every daily lot is carried out on three-level African-style raised beds for 15 to 20 days.

When tasting the coffee in our cupping lab, we were really stoked how sweet and juicy this coffee is. But even better, it turns even sirupy when cooling down. And with hints of plum, caramel and hazelnut, it's been an obvious choice to us to make it our end of the year holdiay season coffee.