4 LA MONTAÑA El Salvador 2023

Description of the owners:
Francisco Ochoa is a second-generation small grower. He has worked with his father (Raul Ochoa) since he was 15 years old in the production, processing, and transportation of coffee. His persistence and dedication in the care of the farm has been the key to achieve a specialty coffee. He is the father of 3 children, the youngest of whom works on the farm with him. He is very proud to continue the family legacy.

History of the farm:
Raul Ochoa (Francisco Ochoa's father) inherited a vacant piece of land from his father many years ago and in 1986 began to grow coffee with seeds purchased from the Salvadoran Institute of Coffee Research (ISIC), which was responsible for creating the Pacamara hybrid from the cross between Maragogipe Rojo and the local Pacas variety. At the beginning he only cultivated Bourbon and Pacas. It was not until 1999 that from 3 bags of seed pounds he selected them and returned to the nursery to later recognize the Pacamara variety.

Finca La Montaña had an average of 15 years of coffee trees due to some replanting and new areas. Raul Ochoa had the idea of participating in the Cup of Excellence with the Pacamara variety in 2007 due to its size and maturity. He also continued with another strategy, reducing the amount of chemical fertilizers and starting to use more organic compost. Finca La Montaña had 3,900 coffee trees per hectare and about 50 shade trees per hectare. That is, 1.75 hectares cultivated with Pacamara, 1.4 hectares cultivated with Bourbon and the remaining 2.45 hectares with Pacas.

Finca La Montaña was the first to win the Cup Of Excellence of El Salvador with the Pacamara variety and also coming from the Alotepec-Metapán mountain range.

In 2004, Francisco Alexander represented Raul and obtained the 31st place with a Bourbon lot, in 2005 he repeated obtaining the 5th place with a Pacamara lot, in 2006, he joined José Montiel, (who also obtained the 4th place in 2007) and reached the 3rd place with a Pacamara lot. In 2007 Finca La Montaña alone took first place in the Cup of Excellence with a score of 92.80.

After a devastating hurricane in 2008 the coffee plantation was totally lost, Raul Ochoa received the help of Coffee Imports to try to restore the farm, but it was impossible to continue with the same plantation, it was then when Francisco Alexander Ochoa took over Finca La Montaña to continue fighting with the family legacy. After some time, Alexander Ochoa decided to replant the farm in 2015 with the Pacamara variety of different colors (red, yellow, and orange) with a total of 6,000 replanted plants from which the current productions are obtained.

After 8 years, in the year 2023 Alexander Ochoa participated with a lot of 6 and a half quintals in the Cup of Excellence 2023 with a variety Pacamara process Honey from Finca La Montaña. He achieved fourth place internationally with a score of 89.89.