
Originally Posted by
HOLWACHAGOT
JP.
The pictures of your land are stunning. You seem to be a blessed man. I bet the only coffee better than your best brew is the cup you drink outside in that mountain air. I swear I can smell coffee when I view your pictures.
I have a question or twenty...
In some of the pics I see mist or fog. I also see what looks like some sort of controlled burning going on.
Its fog. Most of the controlled burnings are done in the sugar cane plantations not in coffee. Coffee has an annual production so you have to take care of the coffee for a long time. We have farms with coffee trees as old as 100 years.
Is this fog the mountain? Or is that smoke from the burning as well?
Fog is very common in the winter time. They are gaises that are common on the high lands near coffee plnatations.Most of the coffee planatatins are in volcanic areas
What is the purpose of the burning? Pest or disease control maybe? Or does this do something to the growth cycle of the trees/plants?
Must of the burning is made (Not in coffee, But in sugar cane)
A) Burn all the leaves before picking the cane( easy ton handle)
B) To evaporate some amount of water ( more sugar particles) Less weight.
Flavor of the coffee?
Here we got a long one. Well Ill try to explain, coffee flavor come from
A) Altitude
B) Variety
C) Type of soil
The altitude is very important on coffee growing; In El Salvador are plantations from the 800 meters from the sea level up to 1800 meter from the sea level. If the altitude increases the complexity of the flavor increase. Low lands coffees are plain, low acidity, low body. High altitude coffee, have a complex flavor with a medium to high acidity creamy body and very sweet.
Variety
We produce mainly 3 varieties Pacas Bourbon, and Pacamara. All of them have different flavors.
Pacas : Mild chocolate, some honey notes.( most common in the low lands)
Bourbon: 60% of the coffee population of the country, Has a creamy body really sweat with dark chocolate notes, the acidy is citric with an aftertaste of plums
Pacamara: Creamy body with citric flavors, caramel notes. Really complex some times.
(These is just a over all description of the coffee flavor it can vary (I can tell you these because I just cup some samples)
Type of soil
Here we have 6 different regions were we plant coffee, most of them have volcanic soil (really high in nutrients (These is really good for bourbon)
Pacamara like more the soils that have more clay on them (For 3 year we have been investigating these)
Please spare no details, what is mundane to you is fascinating to many of us...well, to me anyway.
Holwachagot