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The Story:
We offered a couple of natural process Ethiopian coffees
last month, and this month we continue with a natural process
coffee from Topéca. After much experimentation, this
is their first foray into natural process coffee.
Bourbon, along with Typica, is one of the
main cultivars of the Coffee Arabica species. It was discovered
as a natural mutant on the island of Bourbon (now known
as Reunion) in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar in the late
18th century. The coffee was prized for it's exceptional
flavor and high yield, and the seeds gradually made their
way across the coffee-growing world. Ironically, no coffee
is grown on the island of Reunion today, but strains of
Bourbon are widely grown in Brazil, in parts of Central
America, especially El Salvador, and in East and Central
Africa, where it lives on in various natural hybrids and
selections like Kenya's SL-28 and SL-34.
Topéca Coffee has been family-owned
for almost 150 years, with two plantations, Finca El Manzano
and Finca Ayutepeque, totaling 300 acres. Both are located
on the slopes of the Santa Ana volcano. Santa Ana has been
the most prized coffee region of El Salvador, located in
the far west of the southern range. In 2005, the volcano
erupted (see image below), coating the area with ash and
reportedly shot out car-sized lava rocks and a flood of
boiling mud and water. For all its destructiveness, volcanic
activity does make for fertile soil.
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