Join us on a tour of Finca Miravalles and their wet mill in El Salvador
Last February I had the pleasure of spending the day at FincaSpanish 101: Finca is the Spanish word for farm. Sometimes the term Hacienda is used to imply an Estate, which would mean the farm has its own wet-mill.... ...more Miravalles on the outskirts of Tapacún town, in El Salvador’s northwestern DepartmentA Department is the term used in some Latin American countries for a State or County. For example, Huila Department is the state in the South of Colombia. ...more Ahuachapán. The farm is owned by the Duarte family, who were so generous as to give me behind the scenes view of their farms and wet millThe wet mill is a processing center where coffee cherry from the tree is brought for initial processing.: The wet mill goes by many names (Beneficio, Factory, Washing... ...more, and so much more (seriously, Tetí was hands down the best tour guide of Atáco I could hope for!).
Finca Miravalles is named for the beautiful views from the top of the farm, the Omoa valley on one side, Juayua valley on the other. They have roughly 120 manzanas of land planted in coffee, and have chosen to focus on segregating different plots to be cultivarCultivar is a term used interchangeably with Varietal in the coffee trade to indicate plant material, although there are distinctions.: The naming of a cultivar should conform to... ...more specific. They go to great lengths to harvest and process each part of the farm separately, in order to isolate different levels of quality.
The care and management at the farm is impressive, and this year we managed to buy 8 different cultivar separations from Miravalles, including CaturraCatimor is a broad group of cultivars derived from a Hibrido de Timor (HdT) and Caturra cross, highly productive, sometimes with inferior cup flavor. The main issue is... ...more, BourbonA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,... ...more, Tabí, Sampacho, H1, CastilloCastillo is a selection of the Colombia cultivar that has become the most commonly grown coffee in Colombia. It is preferred to the older resistant variety, Variedad Colombia... ...more, and a tiny lot of PacamaraAs the name implies, Pacamara is a large bean cultivar, a cross between Pacas and Maragogype with unique flavor properties. This variant originated in El Salvador in 1958,... ...more. Look out for the first lots from Miravalles to launch during the week of June 19th.
Take a tour of Finca Miravalles, where you’ll learn a little bit about the farm history, see some of the coffee cultivar separation at the farm, and get an in-depth look at coffee being processed at their mill.
Learn more about coffee from El Salvador
See our Video tour of the other Duarte family farm, Finca San Luis
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