One Tuesday afternoon in October, Rodrigo Samayoa from Finca L’Etranger in El Salvador walked into Café Blá and asked if we wanted to try coffee from his family farm in El Salvador, produced by his father Ernesto. I said that we would very much like to try his coffee and we sat and had a lovely conversation about coffee, coffee pricing and the issues facing many farmers at the moment and I immediately had a good feeling about the Samayoa family and their coffee.
We get sent a lot of samples from different farms all over the world, with a massive range of qualities and flavour profiles. This means you never know what you’re going to get when you receive samples from a farm/producer that you don’t know. The samples that we cupped from Finca L’Etranger are definitely some of the best coffees I have cupped this year and from the 6 samples we had I could have happily ordered all of them. As it is, 6 different lots from El Salvador would have been too much so I only ordered 3.
For a while now, I have been looking for a good way to buy African varietals that have been produced in Central or South America. When I saw Red and Pink Kenibon as options from L’Etranger, I asked Rodrigo to explain a little more about the hybrid. As it turns out, it is a hybrid of Kenyan SL28 and Bourbon, both Red and Pink respectively. These hybrids are thought to be natural mutations that have happened over time in El Salvador and are varietals that are only in very low production. Yellow Icatú, on the other hand, is lab-made hybrid from Brazil. It was created to be Roya (Leaf Rust) resistant in the 1970’s and is a hybrid of Canephora and Typica.
For a while now, I have been looking for a good way to buy African varietals that have been produced in Central or South America. When I saw Red and Pink Kenibon as options from L’Etranger, I asked Rodrigo to explain a little more about the hybrid. As it turns out, it is a hybrid of Kenyan SL28 and Bourbon, both Red and Pink respectively. These hybrids are thought to be natural mutations that have happened over time in El Salvador and are varietals that are only in very low production. Yellow Icatú, on the other hand, is lab-made hybrid from Brazil. It was created to be Roya (Leaf Rust) resistant in the 1970’s and is a hybrid of Canephora and Typica.
We are very pleased to have met Rodrigo and, through him, his family’s coffee and look forward to a continued relationship for the years to come!