El Salvador Dry Process Finca Miravalles

The 120 manzana Finca Miravalles is a family affair. It's owned by husband and wife Luis Duarte and Tete Chacón, and much of the management is handled by their son, Luis Jr, and Chico, the on-site manager of 15 years. The farm is located in Apaneca, Ahuachapan, not too far from the Santa Ana volcano. It used to be two separate farms, Miravalles belonging to Tete's family, Santa Maria to Luis's. They were both raised on these neighboring farms, family ownership going back some 150 years. Sometime after marrying, they put in an offer on Miravalles, which was all but abandoned at the time, and joined with Santa Maria under the Miravalles name. They have been renovating the farm ever since, keeping much of the original Bourbon and Pacas cultivars, and planting several other varieties, including H1 and F1 hybrids, Catimor, Pacamara, Caturra, and Gesha. They've done an amazing job segregating the cultivars in separate plots, and go to great lenghts to harvest and process separately too. This year we bought several of the varietal separations, this being an all Cuscatleco lot (disease resistant sarchimor). It's also a dry process coffee, which in general terms means they dry the whole coffee cherries with the seeds inside, rather than removing first. There's an additional step to the dry process method at Miravalles, which first involves sealing up in plastic bags for 3 days during which the cherries ferment. Then they pour the cherries onto raised beds where they dry for around 2 weeks. The resulting cup is quite fruit forward, big bodied, and with fairly low level of acidity. Miravalles is perched on the verdant slopes of the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain region, and spans an altitude range of about 1250 to 1550 meters above sea level. Check out our video tour of the Miravalles farm, and in-depth look at their wet process method in action at their mill.