Community Espresso: Group Renacer | El Salvador

Key origin info:

Producer: Around 29 small producers of the Renacer group

Region: El Salvador
Altitude: 1400 masl

Varietals: Bourbon & Pacas
Process: Washed

Importer: Falcon Speciality

Cup profile: Creamy, milk chocolate biscuits & figs

About the Community Espresso range:

Our coffee offering is all about showcasing fresh in-season single-origin coffees while sharing stories of their origins and producers. With our house espresso, consistency of flavour profile all year around is paramount whilst ensuring freshness. With our community espresso we want
to bring in a little more variety in flavour and change up the coffee’s origin every few months whilst putting forward the great work that goes into producing coffee as part of a community within a certain region.

Coffees we are showcasing as part of this series are sourced from projects run or supported by our trusted exporting/importing partners, all with coffee growing communities at heart. The key element linking all these project is the aim to improve producers’ livelihoods through high quality coffee production whilst caring for the environment.

Our community espresso celebrates the hard work of these producer groups whilst bringing you a flavour profile suited for classy espresso based drinks – black and with milk. Expect a coating creamy body, milk chocolate and just the right amount of subtle fruit notes characteristic of the coffee’s origin to liven up the cup.

More about Grupo Renacer:

Renacer was established in 2020 to work with small producers around the Canton (Area) Los Naranjos who farm on small 1 – 2 manzana plots of land. The farmers in this area main problems were poor plant nutrition, increased occurrence of diseases, poor quantities of production and lack of access to market. The potential for quality was spotted with producers in this region as they had bourbon and pacas varietal mainly as well as being at altitudes of around 1400masl.

The Technical field school which is led by Sigfredo Corado who had already started to help producers in this region before Renacer was established. Sigrfredo is a retired Agronomy Professor who had established with business partners the Los Naranjos Group farms (Los Angeles & Finca Noruega) as well as a wet mill. At Renacer he leads a team of 6 field technicians to help small to medium producers in the area by focusing on best farm practises that are restorative for the land and soil as well as beneficial for the yield and quality of the coffee. The field school is based at the farm named Finca Noruega where there is a class held twice a month for the students. Throughout the year there are 3 modules and these look to focus on the 4 R's the program have developed for soil health.

Right Source.

Right Dose.

Right Place.

Right Moment.

All the training takes place at Finca Noruega where the technical school is based the students work the test plots where they can implement the knowledge gained in class before applying it to their own farms. Finca Noruega is 43 Manzanas planted with a range of varieties from bourbon to gesha.

In the first year there were 10 students who were part of the program and with the work they put in the los Naranjos group agreed to centralise their wet milling and use Beneficio San Rafael located between the two hills of El Pilon and Cerro Aguila at 1450 masl. This would help the producers create a more uniform and quality controlled coffee to sell together. At the end of the 2019/20 harvest they established a committee of four producers from the group who were elected. This committee would learn about the commercilisation of their coffees, how to cup and market them. They would then be involved in the total process and understand the true value of their coffees and provide transparency to all members about the quality and prices received.

This year the training has been delivered to 25 producers and 3 members of the original 10 (Hipólito Casper Alas, Tito Hernández Pérez and Manfreis Chávez) who showed an aptitude in understanding the practises and adopted them best. They are being trained to help deliver the training to more of their peers working at extension officers for the Renacer group.