About this Coffee
Our El Salvador Honey blend exudes flavor notes of honeysuckle, golden raisin, and clove, with undertones of sweet granola and warm baking spices. This year’s Las Mercedes Honey blend smells just like grandma’s kitchen.
The honey process starts with removing the skin from the coffee fruit immediately after picking, but the beans are dried with at least some of the fruit pulp or “honey” still adhering to them. As a result, the pulp adds sweetness and a little bit of fruit taste to the bean. Before depulping, the coffee fruit goes through an intense screening process to eliminate twigs, leaves, and other foreign material. At the wet mill, coffee cherries are received into ceramic tiled ditches, washed with fresh, collected rainwater, and immediately fed into a pulper, which each has rotating disks or cylinders and is fitted with adjustable knives. Pulpers are designed to separate the bean from the flesh of the fruit while leaving each bean intact in its parchment envelope. Coffee beans are then dried on clay patios to ensure even drying.
Finca Las Mercedes is a beautiful coffee farm with owners dedicated to care for their community, their workers, and the environment with the same care that they invest into their coffee. The Ortiz family provides healthcare, food, and clothing to those in the community that are in need. Las Mercedes is committed to ecological care, making efforts to preserve natural wildlife, to maintain compliance with our certifications in the way that the mill’s by-products are disposed of, and to avoid contamination. In the last few years, the Ortiz family has prioritized preservation by planting native trees. We are proud to offer this limited Direct Trade that is also Rainforest Alliance Certified. As part of our Direct Trade relationship, 25 cents of every pound is invested back into the Las Mercedes community, funding community sports programs and the Los Ortiz medical clinic.