La Esperanza - El Salvador 2005 Verified listing

"Switching Traditions"

La Esperanza (the hope) is an old propriety that was planted at the end of the 19th Century by General Francisco Menendez, an ancestor of Gustavo Magana, head of Cosanje Sociedad Cooperativa de R.L., the fifth generation of owners. The farm, located in Apaneca, was one of the first to switch from Indigo plantations to the coffee. That’s why the owners named it this way. The propriety is 100% Bourbón and has 42 hectares of coffee growing area. There are an average of 2,100 trees per hectare. The coffee from the winning lot was picked, processed, and milled in the same day in the mill that was built on the farm in the 1960´s. The mill was closed during the civil war, and was reactivated after the conflict in the beginning of the 1990´s. The processing method was wet and dried 100% in patios. An important factor is that the owners of the farm kept the traceability of the coffee, even down to locating the trees where the coffee was picked.