Spotlight on...El Salvador Chalate

This week, we’re shining the spotlight on the new crop of an old favorite, El Salvador Chalate.

Chalatenango is a mountainous region in El Salvador that borders Honduras. It’s known for the Las Matras Archaeological Ruins with prehistoric relics and caves filled with rock writing. Chalatenango also boasts El Salvador’s tallest mountain, El Pital, which stands 8957 ft above sea level. It’s not as well know for its coffee, but it should be. Though Santa Ana is the more famous coffee growing region in El Salvador, the coffees from Chalatenango are amazing.

The mountains and high valleys of Chalatenango contain small farms, most between 2 and 8 acres. Our El Salvador Chalate was grown on a slightly larger farm. Finca La Benedicion is about 12.5 acres in size, and in 2015 this small but meticulous grower placed 2nd in El Salvador’s Cup of Excellence competition.

The 2020 Cup of Excellence for El Salvador has been put on hold because of Covid-19. That’s hard on the coffee industry, but great for us. This year’s El Salvador Chalate from Finca La Benedicion is so good, it just might have won and sold out at the auction before we ever saw it. As it is, we were able to taste and buy some to share with you as one of our Roaster Gold coffees.

El Salvador Chalate is smooth and complex. Roasted to a light (City) roast level, the brewed coffee starts with a lovely aroma that promises rich, sweet chocolate and citrus, with just a hint of lively herb. The lively note hits the tongue first with a spritz of lemon verbena, before smoothing into a sweet, almost candied mix of orange and lime. Then comes the chocolate. Rich and so smooth, the chocolate just goes on and on. Long after the coffee’s gone, its rich chocolate finish lingers. We love this coffee roasted light, because we really enjoy the lively herbal note and citrus flavors, but the coffee is grown high enough to take any roast level well. Try it at a Full City or Vienna roast to bring out even more chocolate richness, or take it dark, to a Northern or Southern Italian roast level, for a bold and even sweeter cup. Any way you try it, this coffee is pure gold.

Have you ever tried coffee from El Salvador? If you have, we’d love to hear about it. Please join the conversation and share it on the Facebook thread or in a comment on this blog. Or, if you'd like to share your thoughts with the wider world, leave us a coffee review on Google or on your favorite review site. Not only do we value your opinions, but reviews help more people find us. Help us connect coffee lovers to fresh, quality coffee!

Thanks!

We wish all our customers continued good health during these challenging times.

~ Carrie, Paul and all of us at Coffee by the Roast

Click here to see a video of last year’s Cup of Excellence for El Salvador.

(video courtesy of Cafe Imports, LLC)