El Salvador
El Valle

Red Honey, Dried On Raised Bed With 50% Shade process Bourbon, Typica

Flavour: apple, honeydew melon, brown sugar

Body: Acidity:

This coffee comes to you from El Salvador, and is part of a very small lot of 4 bags (around 240kg) from this farm.

Like much of Central America, El Salvador has been hit hard by La Roya (leaf rust) a fungus that eats at leaves and stops coffee plants flowering or producing coffee beans. Tragically for small family-run farms, losing 75% of coffee crops to leaf rust isn’t unusual. (The BBC has a great story on leaf rust).

Many farmers replaced traditional varieties such as those in this coffee are with hardier varieties to improve yield, however this resulted in arguably lower-quality and flavour.

So we’re excited to see Don Antonio Raís producing great tasting, traditional varietals like the Bourbon and Typica in this bag.

What is honey processed coffee?

This is a red honey processed coffee. But it’s got nothing to do with the stuff from beehives: honey process is when some flesh (or mucilage) is left on the coffee cherry during processing, giving it a sweeter flavour.

There are three common types of honey process: yellow, red and black. Each describes the amount of mucilage that’s left on the cherry: yellow is the least, red leaves more flesh during processing, and black leaves the most.

These colours reflect the changing colour of the cherry at processing: the more flesh left on there, the darker the cherry looks.

Honey process is a third, less common process that's two most common methods of processing coffee: Natural process and Washed process.

Probably the original way of handling coffee, natural process leaves the flesh on the coffee cherry as it is dried in the sun. This tends to give a slightly sweeter flavour, but can also reduce the quality and longevity of the coffee due to the fermentation of the sugars in the flesh.

The other common method, washed process, uses mechanical processes to remove the flesh from the coffee cherry before being fermented in water to remove any remaining flesh, washed again, and finally sun drying. Washed process beans tend to have more distinct, cleaner flavours. This method originated in Africa, but is now common in other countries as producers and wet mills focus on crop quality for the specialty coffee market.

Different processes tend to be more common in each part of the world. Liz Clayton at Serious Eats has a great summary of how coffee is processed around the world.

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Ethical, traceable sourcing

This page has all the sourcing information (variety, process, region, story, importer, and more) that our importers share with us, and give us permission to use.

The transparency helps us talk confidently about the quality and background of our product, and it helps you know exactly what you’re buying.

Learn more:
Coffee page transparency legend
Our coffee philosophy
Our business approach

Fresh harvest coffee

We only source and roast coffee from each country’s latest harvest season (so the green coffee is never older than 1 year from the time of picking, processing and packing). This ensures the sensory qualities are always at their peak and unaffected by excessive ageing.

Roasted for espresso and filter (best enjoyed black)

Roast style: omni. Omni roasts are designed to brew and taste great both as espresso and filter. Our omni single origins generally sit on Agtron values in the ~70-60 value range. So, technically, they are somewhere in the lighter side of the medium spectrum.

Designed for espresso and filter brewing. Best enjoyed black.

Learn more:
Our Loring Kestrel S35 roaster
Our roasting style and approach

Best brewed within days 15-49 post-roast

The ‘fresh is best’ saying doesn’t apply to coffee (contrary to popular belief). Waiting before opening and brewing your bag of whole coffee beans helps develop peak flavour and acidity.

But heads up: if you buy pre-ground coffee, brew it as soon as possible.

Learn more:
Our recommended brewing window

Try our custom brewing recipes

Our recipes and ratios are tailored to our coffee sourcing and roasting styles, bringing the best flavour and feel out of each coffee.

For pour over, immersion, and other filter brewing styles, check our brew guides.
For our espresso single origins, we recommend a coffee:yield ratio of 1:3:

Dose: 20g ground coffee
Yield: 60g espresso
Total brew time: ~24-28 seconds

This is just a starting point! We encourage you to experiment, taste, and adjust to find the recipe that you enjoy the most.

Learn more:
Our espresso brew guide (single origin)
Brewing ratio calculator

Packaging and sustainability

Bags: ABA-certified home compostable (AS 5810-2010)
Labels: recyclable
Valves (only on +250g bags): general waste
Box and tape (online orders): recyclable

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Our packaging

Producer: Antonio Raís
Country: El Salvador
Region: La Palma, Alotepec Metapán
Altitude: 1500m above sea level
Varieties: Bourbon, Typica
Process: Red Honey, Dried On Raised Bed With 50% Shade
Harvested: March 2015
Importer: Silo
Body: Full
Acidity: Medium
Tasting notes: Apple, honeydew melon, brown sugar
Roast style: Omni (filter + espresso)

Varieties

Bourbon variety

A natural mutation of the Typica varietal, Bourbon is named after Reunion Island (then known as Il Bourbon) where the French cultivated the Typica plants which naturally mutated.

Typica variety

Considered to be one of the ‘genus’ varietals from which all other varietals have mutated from

The location

Coffee from El Salvador

El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America, is colloquially referred to as the ‘Land of Volcanoes’. Renowned for producing exceptional coffees with great clarity and sweetness. The coffee industry first took off after their primary crop, indigo, declined with the invention of chemical dyes in the 19th Century.