Outpost Coffee: El Salvador, El Molino, Natural

This is a project with an El Salvadorian producer, Jose Antonio Salaverria and his two sons Andres Salaverria and Jose Antonio Salaverria the younger. They are now the 6th generation of coffee producers.

The coffees come from different farms and are all processed at their central mill, Las Cruces. They bought Beneficio Las Cruses in 1990 and have done a lot of improvements since then. A lot of their success is based on their passion for coffee. They have been hard working and realistic, patient and focused on quality to make it sustainable. They have also managed to build a great team. Jose Antonio consider the workers and the team as the biggest asset.

They have three main areas of coffee production around the Santa Ana volcano in El Salvado - Santa Rita, San Francisco and El Molino. El Molino is an old mill with surrounding farms and was bought 80 years ago by the family. The farms at El Molino are about 100 years old. They have had the San Francisco complex from about 2002. Santa Rita from 2005.

The farms we work with and buy are mainly from 1400 to 1750 meters above sea level. This is regarded as a good altitude in El Salvador. In this area it’s hard to grow coffees above this level.

They also have a number of different varietals at their farms, and are currently doing a lot of experiments. The majority is still a mix of the old traditional Bourbon Elite, and something they call Hibrido San Fransisco wich is a mix of Bourbon Elite and Pacas.