The focus for our 02 Filter blend is to combine two high quality in-season offerings with complementing flavor profiles to maximize complexity. In blending, we want to highlight the strengths of each coffee, while still promoting the uniqueness of each flavor profile, and creating an overall experience that is complex yet inviting. Both coffees come from cooperatives that not only stress quality, but actively work to train farmer members on best growing practices that will enhance the quality of the coffee over time. You can expect to taste a balance of pleasant fruit forward acidity with notes of delicate Assam tea and dried fig.

Proyecto Cabañas is a central processing project that currently services 65 small farms across the Cabañas community. It is a remote area in the complex ridgelines along the Honduras-El Salvador border, due south of Marcala city. Participating farms average only 2.5 hectares apiece and are managed by immediate family. The processing project was first established in 2012. Farms across the region were struggling to survive after a roya (coffee leaf rust) outbreak devastated the predominant coffee cultivars in production—cultivars like typica and pacas, both excellent in the cup but highly susceptible to illness. Many of the farms had only recently been established, as coffee in Cabañas was not typically cultivated until the year 2000 when landowners saw the potential of planting it. The newer, state-sponsored hybrids farmers planted to replace their loss, such as Lempira and Ihcafe-90. San Vicente, a miller, exporter, and marketing group based in Honduras’ Santa Bárbara department, was first introduced to farmers in Cabañas by one of their producers, Alex Ponce, who has family in the region. The project began with only 3 producers, a single pulping machine, and 3 raised beds on a rented plot of land. Now, 10 years later, the group is much larger and the project is producing a wide variety of processing styles. And Alex Ponce is still the general manager of the project. This particular lot is fully-washed. Coffee cherries are received daily from participating farmers, are de-pulped and de-mucilaged via water friction, and moved straight to raised beds to dry. The drying parchment is stirred every 30 minutes during the day for about 2 weeks, and continuously sorted to remove all visible defects. At the station all day lots are kept separate for quality purposes.

Known as “the land of volcanoes,” El Salvador is the smallest Central American country (roughly the same size as New Jersey), but its reputation among specialty-coffee-growing regions has grown larger-than-life, especially since the early 2000s. While coffee was planted and cultivated here mostly for domestic consumption starting in the mid-1700s, it became a stable and significant crop over the next 100 years, notably increasing in national importance during the late 1800s. As coffee farming grew in importance, different government programs designed to increase production through land, tax, and military-exemption incentives created a small but strong network of landowners who gained control over the coffee market. The Metapan Region of Northern El Salvador sits right on the Trifinio Biosphere Reserve, where El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala all meet. Elevation and temperate climate in this region play a pivotal role in creating ideal growing conditions for exceptional coffee. Metapan is a regional lot and is made up of coffee from several small-scale producers in Metapan who bring cherries to the El Borbollon dry mill for processing and export. El Borbollon is a milling station in Santa Ana that is committed to working closely with their producers, maintaining long lasting relationships and sharing exceptional coffees from El Salvador. The dry mill has been helping their community of coffee producers gain access to the market since 1985 and strives to continue this work.