El Salvador San Francisco double soaked

Cerro Las Ranas is not only one of the more significant estates belonging to the JASAL group, but also a national forest reserve donated to National Forest Association of El Salvador. The farm belongs to Jose Antonio Salaverria. The JASAL group of farms are situated amongst the Apaneca Ilamatepec mountain range, part of the Cordelliera de Apeneca. This volcanic range runs through the Ahuachapán, Santa Ana, and Sonsonate departments in the west of El Salvador, and is where many of the Cup of Excellence producing farms are located.

The farm itself is part of a national forest reserve which, at its highest point has a lagoon that is home to thousands of frogs, which, at certain times of the year are to be found across the farm. So ubiquitous are these that the symbol for the Jasal group has become a frog, and the coffee name, ‘Ranas’, translates to English as frog, whilst ‘Cerro’ means mountain or hill. San Francisco is a demarkation within the farm often used as a separate farm in itself.

This coffee also contains the varietal referred to as HSF, an abbreviation for Hibrido de San Francisco, giving away the fact that this farm lent its name to the Bourbon x Pacas cross here discovered. Cup quality is very similar to Bourbon, but it has a slightly higher productivity and shows greater tolerance to rust, though is not completely resistant.

We’ve worked with Jasal over the years to develop many variations of processing through our Los Nogales project, and a consistent favourites have been the soaked and double soaked. We’ve also always favoured the San Francisco plot so are combining the two in this soaked offer.

Coffees are milled at the groups Benficio Las Cruces, located in nearby Santa Ana. Despite being a historic processing centre with over 100 years behind it, it has been regularly updated to and is currently renovated to contain wet and dry processing facilities, along with eco-friendly equipment, raised African beds, patios and mechanical driers.

For the double soaked, the initial process is slightly different in that the beans are pulped but without the rigourous removal of the pulp as seen in the soaked. They are then submerged in the soaking tank for 10-12 hours where some fermentation does take place. Water is then removed and replaced with fresh and a second soaking allowed for 10 hours with any additional floaters being removed at each soaking. 100% of the mucilage is removed during these two soakings, and we find the complexity is increased and intensity of fruit flavours is slightly higher. Beans are then laid on patios for drying under the sun, which will take 12 – 15 days weather dependent.