Cerro Las Ranas (the Hill of Frogs) coffee is named after the farm’s lagoon that is populated by thousands of frogs, located in Apaneca within the department of Ahuachapan, El Salvador. The coffee is produced by JASAL, a family owned operation where Jose Antonio Salaverria and his sons take great pride in their meticulous attention to detail, from year-round farm management to quality control in the cupping lab, and everything in between. In the pulped natural process (also called a honey process), JASAL pulps perfectly ripened cherries and then dries the coffee beans, still covered in mucilage, on clay patios while...
This fresh batch of beans is sourced from the Kenyan open auction system (Nairobi Coffee Exchange), where the quality of the coffee and generally transparent access has been credited for strong prices relative to other coffee regions. Most coffee is grown in the fertile foothills of Mount Kenya. Farmer plots are so small that size is gauged by the number of trees rather than the measurements of the land, which means producers often have more control to strategically pick and deliver only the ripest cherry to their local factory (wet-mill). Factories generally have an abundance of water lending to exquisite...
