El Salvador: Finca Argentina, SL28, Natural

Expect a sweet but crisp honeydew melon, backed up by gentle yellow plum. A smooth and silky coffee, the darker sweetness of dates and figs comes through on the finish and aftertaste.

Roland last visited El Salvador in February as the harvest at Finca Argentina was just coming to an end. The farm is at a lower altitude than other producers we work with in El Salvador, so that shifts the harvest a little earlier than San Jose or Nejapa, for example. He travelled with Mauricio to visit the Los Ausoles mill to cup the various seasonal coffee lots available this year. We absolutely had to buy this Natural SL28 lot once we tasted it.

On The Farm

Near the town of Turin, in the Ahuachapán department of El Salvador, you’ll find Finca Argentina. It’s located in the Apaneca-Ilamtepec mountain range, surrounded by natural hot springs at an altitude of 1,300 metres above sea level. The farm’s 35 hectares are separated into 7 distinct areas or "tablons". Each of these individual plots has its own character, shaped by the landscape and the small peculiarities of microclimate that come with changes in altitude, aspect, soil, and even local volcanic activity.

Over time, the team at Finca Argentina have put a lot of effort into exploring different varietals, discovering what grows best on each of the farm’s 7 tablons. The Guachipelin tablon spans 6 hectares and was replanted in 2016 with H1 (Centroamericano), Yellow Bourbon, Icatu, and a small amount of SL28.

The Martinez Family

The farm was first acquired by the Martinez family in 1967. Dr Luis Guillermo Martinez bought the estate, and it quickly became his favourite and produced well. By the time his son, Mauricio, inherited it in 2008, cherry yields had dropped significantly and he was unsure how best to proceed with his newly owned farm. It was here that his son, and our now good friend, Alejandro, stepped in.

He had just relocated back to El Salvador after working as a city banker in New York and decided to lend a hand to his father’s business interests while looking for work. Ale’s interest was piqued when he saw that the farm had been classified for a Q auction in 2005, showing it had the potential for great coffee. He and his cousin, based in London, set about sending green coffee samples to roasters wherever they could, seeking a specialty buyer. One of those samples landed with us in 2008, and we’ve been buying ever since.

Mauricio and Alejandro both now live in Canada, but Mauricio still owns and oversees the farm remotely. He relies on his farm manager and the on-site team to handle day-to-day operations and keep him up to date, while visiting El Salvador regularly to check in. The Martinez family employ 50 people during harvest and 30 throughout the rest of the year. Mauricio's daughter Beatrix, who hadn't previously been involved in coffee, is also stepping in to help with the family business.

Processing of the coffee is carried out at the Los Ausoles dry mill, a cooperative facility in Ahuachapán. They have a very good relationship with Mauricio and have shown great consistency and reliability for us as buyers.

Highly Skilled Workers

Throughout the growing season at Finca Argentina, individual workers are given a lot of responsibility over pruning and managing trees. On many farms, pruning would be quite regimented, for example every other tree receiving a skeleton prune in a particular section. At Finca Argentina, these decisions are left much more to the knowledge of the staff, who decide on a plant-by-plant basis what kind of pruning is needed as they work through an area.

It is easy to ruin coffee production if the wrong pruning choices are made, so this demonstrates a huge amount of trust and is only possible because the farm retains and develops workers’ skills over the long term.

El Salvador has been hit hard by the wider labour shortage affecting other Central American countries. Fortunately, Finca Argentina is currently managing well, although they continue exploring ways to retain sufficient staff during harvest season. The Martinez family employ 50 people during harvest and 30 throughout the rest of the year. They contribute labour and materials to improve local infrastructure and grow 25kg of corn annually for each worker.

They’re also implementing more ecological management practices, using compost and other organic products to minimise environmental impact while intercropping beans to enrich the soil. Their work has improved biodiversity and cup quality, and the future for coffee production at Finca Argentina is looking very bright.

A Kenyan Varietal In El Salvador

SL28 is a tall coffee plant with wide-spreading branches. It produces relatively large, deep red cherries among large leaves on leggy branches that tend to droop with age. It is a low-yielding cultivar with a susceptibility to coffee leaf rust, Coffee Berry Disease, and nematodes, but its phenomenal cup quality means that it remains a favourite among specialty coffee drinkers. Despite its demanding nature, the results in the cup are one of the key reasons farmers continue to grow it.

In 1931, A.D. Trench, the senior coffee officer at Scott Agricultural Laboratories in Kenya, travelled through Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and found coffee trees in the Moduli district that appeared to tolerate drought, disease, and pests better than other plants he had observed. He collected seeds from these specimens and returned them to the laboratory in Kenya. Testing confirmed their superior drought tolerance compared with other varietals under evaluation. This population became known as Tanganyika Drought Resistant and was distributed to farmers for planting.

Between 1935 and 1939, Scott Laboratories began selecting individual trees from different coffee populations to evaluate characteristics such as yield, cup quality, drought tolerance, and disease resistance. Each selection was assigned an "SL" number.

SL28 was selected in 1935 from a single tree originating from the Tanganyika Drought Resistant population. That tree went on to become one of the most important varieties in specialty coffee, renowned for its pronounced acidity, vibrant fruit character, and exceptional quality when grown at high altitude.

Want to learn more about SL28? Check out our Varietal Guide here: Coffee Varietal Guide: SL28

• Country: El Salvador
• District: Ahuachapán
• Municipality: Ahuachapán
• Nearest city: Turin
• Farm: Finca Argentina
• Producer: Mauricio Martinez
• Dry mill: Los Ausoles
• Elevation: 1,300 to 1,360 m.a.s.l.
• Variety: SL-28
• Processing method: Natural
• GPS: 13°56'29.4"N 89°47'04.1"W

Tasting notes: Honeydew melon, mango, papaya.

Cup of Excellence Cupping Scores

• Clean Cup: 6/8
• Sweetness: 6.5/8
• Acidity: 6/8
• Mouthfeel: 7/8
• Flavour: 6.5/8
• Aftertaste: 6.5/8
• Balance: 6/8
• Overall: 6.5/8
• Correction: +36
• Total: 87/100

If you'd like to find out more about how we score coffees, make sure to read our blog post “What Do Coffee Cupping Scores Actually Mean?” and if you'd like to try cupping yourself, we've got a guide to that too! What is Coffee Cupping.

Medium Dark - Give this coffee a confident push through first and into the gap, right up to the edge of second before you drop.