Stone Fruit, Milk Chocolate, Hazelnut
From nineteen farms on the slopes of the Santa Ana Volcano, this El Salvador single origin is a medium-dark washed coffee with stone fruit, milk chocolate and hazelnut sitting comfortably together in the cup. It's the kind of coffee that drinks well however you brew it - easy to enjoy on its own terms, with enough character to keep things interesting.
Mellow, rich, with stone-fruit warmth
This coffee comes from the El Borbollon mill in El Salvador's Apaneca Ilamatepec Mountain Range, where the Alvarez family and head cupper Luis Rodriguez have drawn together nineteen farms - all growing Red Bourbon at between 1,300 and 1,400 metres - into a single, carefully assembled lot. The washed process is thorough and considered: cherries are floated and pulped, fermented overnight, then washed with recycled water before spending eight to ten days drying on raised patios. El Borbollon are also experimenting with extended drying times, covering the beans for parts of the day to coax out more complexity. Once dried, the parchment rests for around six weeks before a team of around forty skilled women hand-sort each bean for defects - a step that shows in the clarity of the cup.
The result is a medium-dark roast that sits comfortably and drinks easily. Stone fruit and milk chocolate come through cleanly, with hazelnut rounding things out into something warm and settled. It works well across brew methods - pull it as an espresso and you'll get body and sweetness; brew it long and it stays smooth. An SCA score of 83 puts it firmly in specialty territory, though it wears that lightly. If you want a single origin that's interesting without demanding too much of you, this is a reliable choice.
About the Roaster
Copper Coffee Roasters started in 2019 in a small Richmond office, where a recruitment business and a growing obsession with great coffee shared the same desk space. That obsession has since grown into a roastery in Cobham, Surrey, three coffee shops across south-west London and Surrey, and a range built around helping people find their way into speciality coffee without the fuss.
