Drop Coffees - Los Andes, Natural Bourbon, El Salvador
Flavour profile: A sweet and dark berry like aroma. The coffee has a medium intense sweetness and flavours of milk chocolate, cacao nibs and a hint of raspberries. The mouthfeel is smooth, with a medium body.
Colour: Smooth red
Category: Comfortble
Producers: Ernesto Menéndez
Varietal: Bourbon
Process: Natural
Harvest: March 2023
Location: Apaneca-Ilamatepec Mountain Range, Santa Ana
Elevation: 1720 meters above sea level
Roast level: Any brewing metod. We are roasting this coffee for vibrancy and clarity in the cup, with a light to medium roast profile.
Price transparency: The FOB price paid for this coffee was 4,20 US$/Ib.
Los Andes is a very interesting coffee produced by an outstanding coffee producer, Ernesto Menéndez, a well-known name in the coffee industry. He has won the Cup of Excellence several times, and we are proud to be buying the coffee from Los Andes exclusively to Drop Coffee. Ernesto started separating the SL28 from the Bourbon for us a few years ago for us, and since a couple of years he is doing a natural process for us as well, limited to 345 kilo only. This means you can taste two very unique taste profiles from Los Andes, that have been grown side by side at the farm as well as the Bourbon in two different processing methods. This natural processed Bourbon, has a big mouthfeel and is a very sweet driven and berry like cup.
Drop Coffee and Los Andes
Los Andes is exclusively Drop coffee, it is about 5 hectares which is a bigger size for us at the moment but we find it worth taking a little more of this coffee, for the clear cooperation between Drop Coffee and Los Andes. Ernesto holds a lot of knowledge and is always very communicative about how he is taking care of the farm, and how he is processing the coffee. Walking the farm together with him is like opening a true treasure, he holds so much knowledge and skills from the agriculture, processing and to the cupping table.
The Bourbon variety at Los Andes
Los Andes has quite an interesting story: Almost 70 years ago, the previous owner of the farm planted SL28 seed on the farm, seeds which had been taken home to El Salvador from a hunting trip in Kenya. Normally the trees we buy coffee from are about 4-20 years old, not 60-70.
The Bourbon varietal is growing right beside the SL28, some of the trees are even older, coming up to 80 years. Bourbon coffee was first produced in Reúnion, which was known as Île Bourbon before 1789. It was later taken by the French to mainland Africa and to Central America. The taste profile of Bourbon is one that we like the most in El Salvador, its mature sweetness matches the slightly bigger mouthfeel that is typical for the country.
At every coffee farm the plants are unique. At Los Andes everything is left to grow "wild" to create a more wild forest environment. The plants age and grow into the natural forest environment that Ernesto is looking for, the plants make the environment really special, almost magical.