Dear coffee subscriber,
In March I visited Diego at Los Pirineos to make a documentary about him and his farm and also to document some of the work we have done over many years. If you still have not seen it I highly recommend watching it on our YouTube channel while drinking this month’s coffees.
This month I have selected three cultivars from Los Pirineos that all have very different flavour profiles, from the more classic and chocolaty Bourbon Elite to more fruity Pacamara and a floral Pink Bourbon.
Although Diego was struggling with heavy rains during the harvest and also a lack of labour, he still managed to produce coffees of high quality for us. In fact this year’s Pink Bourbon has more intensity of flavour than previous years.
In this month’s subscription video I am joined by our wholesale manager Ben Symes who recently celebrated his 10 year anniversary with us. Ben is a very good taster so I hope you will enjoy watching us talk about this month’s coffees together.
Los Pirineos Bourbon Elite (1st & 4th bag)
Flavour notes
Dark chocolate, hazelnuts & dried fruits
Producer
Diego Baraona
Harvest
February 2025
Origin
Tecapa-Chinameca, Usulutan, El Salvador
Process
Washed
Cultivar
Bourbon Elite
This Bourbon coffee is a great representation of the Bourbon varieties grown at Los Pirineos. It showcases many of the chocolatey notes often found in Bourbon coffees from Brazil, but with greater intensity and a more concentrated flavour profile. The coffee features distinct notes of chocolate, roasted nuts, and dried fruits.
Gilberto Baraona named these trees “Bourbon Elite” as they are very old and believed to be among the original Bourbon trees first planted in El Salvador many years ago. His son Diego, who now manages the farm, loves these Bourbon coffees just as much as Tim does. Diego has expressed his intention to focus on producing more of this variety, alongside Pacamara, Sudan Rume, and a few other cultivars he has identified as capable of producing unique coffees on the farm.
Los Pirineos Pacamara (2nd & 5th bag)
Flavour notes
Tart red berries, stone fruit & dark chocolate
Producer
Diego Baraona
Harvest
February 2025
Origin
Tecapa-Chinameca, Usulutan, El Salvador
Process
Washed
Cultivar
Pacamara
With complex tart red fruit flavours, notes of stone fruit and structured acidity, this is a great example of how complex a washed Pacamara can be. There is a good reason why Los Pirineos has won so many awards for their Pacamara coffees.
Often times you hear that Pacamara coffees can be a bit herbal or oniony in flavour, and we don’t disagree, but this coffee has none of those off-flavours. There are so many versions of Pacamara being planted as the cultivar is not uniform, probably because it was released before it was stabilised as a new cultivar. Maybe that is why there are so many different flavour profiles of this cultivar as well.
In Tim’s experience, the Pacamara coffees from Los Pirineos always taste good and rarely display any of the unusual flavours sometimes associated with the cultivar. He believes this is because Los Pirineos was one of the farms involved in the development of Pacamara, and the team there was able to select a particularly good line suited to their conditions. Today, Diego produces high-quality, certified Pacamara seeds, which he also sells to other coffee farmers.
Los Pirineos Pink Bourbon (Ethiopian) (3rd & 6th bag)
Flavour notes
Floral, white tea & peach
Producer
Diego Baraona
Harvest
February 2025
Origin
Tecapa-Chinameca, Usulutan, El Salvador
Process
Washed
Cultivar
Pink Bourbon (Ethiopian)
This is by far the best Pink Bourbon we have ever bought from Diego, and compared to last year’s harvest, this lot shows much greater flavour intensity. For the past few years, we have been waiting to get larger volumes of this delicious coffee, and to our delight, this year we received over 400 kilos of it – and as a bonus, it tastes better than ever.
Pink Bourbon should, in fact, not be called Bourbon, as it is an Ethiopian landrace cultivar. This is quite evident in the cup, where the characteristics are far more Ethiopian than the traditional Bourbon typically found in Latin America.
This coffee has a distinct floral and peach-like flavour profile, similar to what we often find in Ethiopian washed coffees.