Los Angeles - El Salvador 2020 Verified listing

Los Naranjos Café it is the result of hard-work, dreams, hopes, struggle and perseverance, these qualities, are also the best representations of great minds behind this company, David Velásquez Gómez, Sigfredo Corado Márquez and Manuel de Jesus Olivares. They met around the 80’s in high school, without any clue that their dreams and ambitions will reunited them 35 years later in a such a beautiful activity as coffee producing.

Nowadays, It´s quite common to hear stories of the old generations of coffee producers and how important it was back in those days, but through the years, coffee producing importance has been decreasing due many conditions around, climate change, economy conditions, political issues, among others. Nevertheless, David, Sigfredo and Manuel, decided to write a new chapter in coffee story and decided to put their knowledge and resources in an industry that has been abandoned in the last years.

Why Coffee? the reason is based on how coffee was involving the life of these guys. Sigfredo, has a big passion for coffee, inherited by his family, he grew up in a coffee environment, his dad and brothers studied agronomy, as a result, he later will follow their path. His exceptional capacity and intelligence allowed him to become an expert in coffee production. David, he has attached feeling for the coffee producing, when he was a child this was his only opportunity he had to collect money, he used work as coffee picker and this helped him to buy school supplies and pay this studies, thanks to this he could finish high school and move to San Salvador to study accounting and a few years later  he founded his own Audit Firm but this wouldn’t it be possible without the opportunity the coffee gave him, he says. Manuel, is great example of perseverance and effort. After he finished high school, he emigrated to the United States in search of better opportunities, his first job there was as a delivery man, this income helped him to finance his studies in accounting. With hard work and dedication, he accomplished place himself as a Tax Director of one of the most prestigious accounting firms in the world. During his job, he absorbed a lot of knowledge and developed an outstanding ability identifying good businesses to invest. He decided to invest in coffee because he sees an opportunity to help the most vulnerable communities in our country through this activity.

In 2014 the company established its activities in an environment of uncertainty and complications due a bear stock market negatively affecting the price of the coffee. There was a point where they could give up or change of a strategy so they did choose the second option,  they decided to export their coffee realizing that this exposure will also allow them to participate in the Specialty Coffee Market  a good solution of the current situation in the coffee market and without realizing it, they had been preparing for this moment years ago, thanks to their philosophy of quality work. In order to achieved this goals and meet the needs of clients seeking high-quality specialty coffee, they spend almost three years until they found FINCA NORUEGA and FINCA LOS ANGELES, two farms located in Apaneca, Ahuachapán, with a huge potential for Specialty Coffee Growing with altitudes from 1300 masl to 1750 masl, soils rich in volcanic and organic matter, and high moisture retention. They proceeded to eliminate elderly coffee trees that no longer produced a quality grain and renew them with young varieties of coffee in accordance with the international specialty coffee market demands such as Pacamara, Red Bourbon, Orange Bourbon, Geisha, Kenya, among others.

The next step for them was to learn about coffee processing so in order to achieve this Sigfredo and David decided to take the Q-Processing Professional course by the Coffee Quality Institute. Los Naranjos saw an opportunity in Specialty Coffee growing requires preparation and hard work but the results are outstanding that’s why that in 2019, the project RAICES AHUCHAPAN, got close to them and started a new project where they want to take producers to this experience and that’s how The School for Farm Managers RENACER was founded, leading by Sigfredo Corado, this school seeks to implement sustainable practices to preserve the soils and innovate processing practices methods in order to help another producer to export their coffees as Los Naranjos did in the Specialty Coffee Market. Los Naranjos Café genuinely believes that El Salvador has the strength and virtues to be recognized as experts in Specialty Coffees Country Producer and that’s why they want to become an example for others to invest in coffee and provide more opportunities to the most vulnerable communities in our country.