El Salvador | Finca Los Naranjos
COUNTRY: El Salvador
REGION: Apaneca
VARIETY: Gesha
ALTITUDE: 1750 masl
PROCESS: Anaerobic Honey
TASTING NOTES: Brown sugar, cooked apricot and cooked peach flavours with complex acidity and candy-like sweetness.
Finca Los Naranjos
Finca Los Naranjos began in 2015 as a hobby by a group of high school friends. When they acquired the 38.5-hectare farm, it had been abandoned for many years and was in a state of chaos. It was a challenge to transform a forgotten farm into a center that now employs more than 200 families in the surrounding communities. They went through many stages of learning along the way to make the dream of running a successful farm a reality. From here they hope to continue building on their progress to make Los Naranjos a well-known and respected farm that stands out in the world. Currently, the farm also boosts coffee appreciation and consumption through a tourist center called Entre Café Experience.
Their coffee is 100% shade-grown with different species of shade trees native to the mountainous area. Since their farm converges with the protected area of the mountain, they have native wildlife such as deer, cotuza, armadillo, toucans, parakeets, and squirrels, among others.
Los Naranjos faces struggles seen across the industry. Their crops are no strangers to pests and diseases such as rust. However, they make many efforts to understand the soil and overall environment of their farm. By using soil studies to evaluate nutritional properties, they can make informed decisions to help their crops thrive. They apply 4-6 fertilizer doses depending on the soil study results and administer treatment for rust if needed. Weed maintenance is done manually with tools such as machete or cuma, so no chemicals are used. They thank their collaborators in this process. The results they've seen from this work wouldn't be possible without them. As part of their environmental protection practices, they take care of the groundwater through soil conservation work, curtains, water collection pits, and more.
Harvest typically runs from January through March. Managers train the coffee pickers on how to cut the coffee cherry with the optimal degree of maturity for a suitable raw material. Before harvesting, areas of the farm are sampled through Brix measurements to best determine ideal ripeness. Picked coffee then heads to the mill where the following classifications are made ahead of processing:
From 0 to 20 degrees brix classification A = Processes: Full Washed or Semi-Washed
From 21 to 30 degrees brix AA or AAA classification = Processes: Honey, Natural, or Experimental