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El Salvador Washed Process

Finca Los Angeles

Finca Los Angeles is a 16-hectare farm founded in 2017 by Los Naranjos Coffee. Several years ago there was a natural disaster that destroyed a large part of the community in the cantón. This farm has been part of the development of the area since and is aiming to be one of the best. In 2020 it competed in its first Cup of Excellence and placed 5th. Something notable about this farm is its topography. It is a practically flat farm with very young nearly 100{4a65237c9a8e679b9c6bd3e44e91fdd9004072b022a95a13c0f5d4898e55832e} Pacamara trees. It has stood out for many of its coffees in places such as Holland, France, and the United Kingdom.

Finca Los Angeles faces struggles consistent 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.

For the Anaerobic Natural process, it is very important to have constant control of the pH to avoid overfermentation. The tanks and barrels are suitable for carrying out fermentation with greater control since they have degassers and drain valves. This allows us not only to measure the pH but also the development of sugars through a measurement of brix grains. Their Anaerobic Naturals are fermented in the tanks for 72 hours under constant monitoring until the pH levels reach 4.05 degrees. It is then moved to the drying area.

In this process, it is important to highlight that after the wet processing, the coffee is pre-dried for three days until it reaches approximately 60{4a65237c9a8e679b9c6bd3e44e91fdd9004072b022a95a13c0f5d4898e55832e} humidity. Then it is taken to raised beds and avoid the risk of obtaining an uncontrolled or undesired fermentation. Their mill is located between two mountains, El Pilón and El Aguila, overlooking the coast of the Department of Sonsonate. The elevation is 1400 masl, which causes drying for the full-washed process to take longer than usual. However, this helps to have more homogeneous drying, a cleaner cup, and longer stability of the beans in storage.

Bed drying for Anaerobic Natural coffee has an average duration of 30-40 days. The coffees are stored once they have reached 10{4a65237c9a8e679b9c6bd3e44e91fdd9004072b022a95a13c0f5d4898e55832e} humidity. Once they enter the warehouse, they are allowed to rest for 24 hours and the humidity is measured again to verify that it is maintained at 10{4a65237c9a8e679b9c6bd3e44e91fdd9004072b022a95a13c0f5d4898e55832e}. This is to account for the climatic conditions of the mill. The dried cherry coffees are placed inside grain pro bags, in polypropylene bags, and sealed with a seam so they cannot be accidentally opened.

Los Naranjos Coffee carries out 4 quality control cuppings, 2 cuppings before being offered and 2 subsequent cuppings after the coffee has rested. All cuppings look to measure consistency or improvement in quality.

Experimental processes such as Anaerobic Natural stand out for their control, avoiding phenolic or alcoholic notes. Most importantly they result in very clean cups.