About this Coffee
We’ve worked with Don Fernando Lima, owner of Finca Santa Elena, since 2009. Thanks to the area’s volcanic soil and Lima’s pristine processing, these coffees offer a more dynamic version of the traditional syrupy, sweet El Salvador profile. Expect notes of cocoa, cashew, and dried cherry.
Pronunciation: SAN-ta a-LAY-nah
On October 1, 2005, Finca Santa Elena owner Don Fernando Lima was gearing up for another coffee harvest when the Santa Ana Volcano erupted for the first time in 101 years, spewing ash and rock across his farm. Located a few hundred meters below the crater of the volcano, Finca Santa Elena was devastated. The farm lost more than 97 percent of its harvest that year, and it took five years for the farm to fully recover. Faced with an enormous challenge, Don Fernando realized that the devastation also brought an opportunity to regroup and make Finca Santa Elena a better coffee farm.
Finca Santa Elena had fully recovered by 2009, when we started working together and continues to improve its quality year-after-year. In Santa Ana, typically coffees are dried on hot, concrete patios, which risk drying the coffees too quickly. Based on our feedback, Santa Elena built an impressive area for cooler raised-bed drying to improve quality.. They have also implemented specific fermentation and processing techniques for some of the selections we have purchased from them. In 2016, the farm replaced an old wet mill with a new, energy-efficient mill. It uses 50 percent less water than their previous mill, saving thousands of liters of water each season.
We believe in paying more.
Since 2009, we have published an annual transparency report to serve as a blueprint for our green coffee purchasing practices and a response to chronically low prices in the coffee industry. We believe paying more for green coffee is an important investment in the long-term viability of our coffee-growing partners’ businesses and our supply.