Posido Estate Coffee Beans

The pursuit of individuality among coffee enthusiasts is endless, and their obsession with coffee varieties is also the beginning of a great cup of coffee. Although there are now many excellent coffee varieties, each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Today, we’re looking at a rather unique coffee variety from the volcanic nation of El Salvador—Pacamara—and Posido Estate, where it’s grown.The Pacamara variety of coffee, throughPosido Estate’sblack honey processing, develops flavors of citrus, orange, grape, and honey after roasting.Its flavor profile includes citrus, orange, grape, and honey.

Posido Estate is located in Chalatenango in north-central El Salvador, situated in an inaccessible volcanic mountain range with fertile soil, making it highly suitable for coffee cultivation. Most coffees from this region are SHB (Strictly Hard Bean), which refers to beans grown at altitudes above 1400 MASL.

The owner of Posido Estate, Ignacio Gutierrez, is a legendary three-time COE (Cup of Excellence) champion from El Salvador. In 2011, his estate Finca La Roxanita participated in the COE for the first time, winning the President’s Award in first place with a washed Pacamara, setting a record for the highest score ever achieved that year. In 2013, his Finca San Nicolas took home the COE first place and President’s Award with a honey-processed Pacamara. In 2015, his Posido Estate’s honey-processed Pacamara earned him a third COE first place and President’s Award. Gutierrez reinvests the annual COE prize money into improving and expanding the farm, and their success stands as proof of his commitment to specialty coffee.

This coffee is of the Pacamara variety, a hybrid of Pacas (a natural mutation of Bourbon) and the giant-bean Maragogype (Elephant Bean), discovered in El Salvador in the 1950s. It was first cultivated by Salvadoran researchers in 1958. The Pacamara variety is a rare and outstanding example of artificially selected breeding, surpassing its parent plants by perfectly inheriting their strengths. It boasts the excellent flavor profile of the Pacas variety while also inheriting the large bean size of the Elephant Bean. The beans are at least 70%-80% the size of Elephant Beans, with 100% measuring over 17 mesh and 90% over 18 mesh. The average bean length is 1.03 cm (compared to the usual 0.8–0.85 cm), width averages 0.71 cm (compared to the usual 0.6–0.65 cm), and thickness reaches 0.37 cm. The beans are plump and well-rounded in shape.