El Salvador Las Mercedes Pacamara

From the award-winning, family-owned, and women-led Finca Las Mercedes, nestled in Cerro El Tigre, El Salvador—crafting exceptional coffee since 1886.

Tecapa 2019- 1 st place - Pacamara Washed
Coffee Review - Nov. 2008 - 92 points
Cup of Excellence 2006 - 1st Place
Cup of Excellence 2009 - 6th Place
Best of Origin 2016 - Top 10

As part of Klatch Coffee’s direct trade partnership, 25 cents of every pound of this coffee sold goes to support community sports programs and medical clinics in the Las Mercedes community. Finca Las Mercedes is a beautiful coffee farm with owners dedicated to care for their community, their workers, and the environment with the same care that they invest into their coffee. The Ortiz family provides healthcare, food, and clothing to those in the community that are in need. Las Mercedes is committed to ecological care, making efforts to preserve natural wildlife, to maintain compliance with our certifications in the way that the mill’s by-products are disposed of, and to avoid contamination. In the last few years, the Ortiz family has prioritized preservation by planting native trees.

The coffee is processed right after being picked, it is sent directly to the wash ditches and the pulp is completely removed. Once the pulp is removed and the coffee is washed it is placed on the patio to dry until it reaches a humidity level between 11.5% and 12%.

Las Mercedes represents the maximum expression of a great coffee that has always been cared for with dedication and perseverance for five generations in the Ortiz family. Only mature cherries with perfect ripeness are allowed. The cherries are subjected to screening before pulping to eliminate twigs, leaves, and other foreign material; also to separate the floaters from the bulk.

Las Mercedes mill uses the wet process which means that the fresh ripe cherries are received immediately after they have been harvested. The cherries are received at the ceramic tiled ditches, washed with collected fresh rainwater from our tanks, and immediately fed into a pulper which consists of rotating disks and cylinders, each one fitted with adjustable knives. These are designed to separate the bean from the flesh of the fruit while leaving each bean intact in its parchment envelope. The pulp is eliminated with the collected rainwater of the tanks and the parchment is collected in the washing channels.

Finally, it is sun-dried to perfection in clay patios surrounded by beautiful landscapes. The drying of the beans takes from 14 to 24 days in the clay patios, depending on the amount of sun the patios received and on the weather. In order to avoid uneven drying and cracking of the parchment, we stir the thinly spread coffee at regular intervals.