Coffee of western El Salvador

Many people enjoy wine.  They become involved with its production as a form of recreation, relaxation, or profession.  People indulge themselves in wine's various tastes, appearances, aromas, and textures.  I've never liked wine that much though.  However, I do like coffee.  I assume this is one reason why I have found coffee so fascinating over the last few months.  I actually began enjoying coffee later in life.  I started drinking and appreciating coffee about six months ago, when I was 28.  I now have multiple coffee-related machines at my house and am getting more in toon with the processing of coffee beans around the world.  It excited me that the Central American countries on my current trip were heavily invested in coffee production.

Cesar Magaña, the owner of my hostal in Juayua, El Salvador, is a coffee geek.  Cesar, 36, is tall, about 6'2", and has a thick beard and curly, dark hair.  He carries himself around with a humorous confidence that naturally draws people closer to him.  Cesar grew up in Juayua, a small pueblo south of Santa Ana, a large and economically important city in El Salvador.  His father and grandfather grew coffee on fincas just outside of Juayua.  When his father died a few years, Cesar inherited prime land for farming coffee.  Since then, he has developed and enhanced his trade.  He grows, dries, and roasts his coffee and serves it at a local restaurant or on coffee tours.  He also sells the roasted beans in specialty markets, mainly in Europe.

The history of coffee in El Salvador - like many in places - is fraught with war, politics, and intrigue.  The coffee bean was brought to El Salvador for domestic production in the early 1800s.  However, once finca owners saw the enormous economic potential of coffee, they soon began to grow it for mass and international sources.  By about 1880, coffee had become El Salvador's main and practically only export crop.  It had completely taken indigo's place, El Salvador's previous main crop.  El Salvador did not have the external technical and financial help that Guatemala and Costa Rica had.  However, coffee developed vigorously, partly because the yield of coffee per hectare generally rose with the size of the finca, an general anomaly in farming.

In 1979, things in El Salvador took a turn for the worst.  The civil war was beginning to take hold, effecting coffee farmers and their investments negatively.  Cesar says that his father wasn't hurt financially by the civil unrest of the 1980s.  This was mainly due to Juayua being in the west of the country.  The main fighting, guerrilla tactics, and "war taxes" of coffee were in the north portion of El Salvador.  Coffee production dropped 19 percent in El Salvador from 1979 to 1986, a direct result of decreased investment.  

Coffee production today has waned significantly.  Between 1870 and 1914, an average of 58.7 percent of government revenue was derived from coffee.  During the 1970s coffee production grew, and in 1980 it was 50 percent of national GDP.  In 2002, however, following the civil war and the invasion off coffee leaf rust, only 3.5 percent of GDP was from coffee.  Coffee leaf rust, a terrible epidemic effecting many of the coffee producing countries in the past few years, has disastrously invaded El Salvador.  Cesar complained of his production being horrendous during the last few years due to this fungus.   

I decided to go on a coffee tour.  A woman and her two children who were both in their twenties accompanied me on the tour.  The woman had moved to the Bay Area in the 1970s from El Salvador.  The tour took place in the center of Juayua.  Here, Cesar's team dried and roasted the coffee and developed various types of varieties of coffee plants.  We were guided around the coffee plants, with Cesar explaining the reasoning behind each of his coffee-based decisions.  Afterward, with Cesar acting as our barista, we enjoyed as many cups of coffee as we wanted.  I enjoyed normal black coffee - Cesar doesn't approve of sugar in good coffee, lattes, cappuccinos, and corditos.  That day, I had more coffee than I had ever had, somewhere around seven or eight cups!  When I think about it, it probably was not a healthy amount but it was definitely worth it!

Cesar explaining his coffee production to my tour group 

Cesar's newly roasted beans

Cesar's roaster

Cesar acting as our barista

A couple of days following the coffee tour, I was sitting around Cesar's hostal when he casually invited me to ride along in his truck to run some errands at his various coffee fincas.  I enthusiastically accepted the invitation.  We climbed into his yellow, 1978, 4-wheel truck and bounced up the dirt roads to his coffee farms.  We eventually made stops at all three of his coffee fincas.  I saw the workers toiling away in the midday sun.   Cesar runs a relatively small operation.  He has between two and five workers at a time depending on the time of year.  Cesar told me that he pays the supervisor of the workers about $125 per month.  The supervisor, his wife, and their kids live rent-free in a house on Cesar's property.  Cesar said that he is looking to increase the man's wage to about $150 per month soon.

Cesar's truck

Cesar explaining his coffee production at one of his three fincas

Cesar with two of his workers in the background

The view from one of Cesar's fincas

The road up to one of Cesar's fincas

Among other things, depending on the weather and fungus outbreaks, Cesar's entire production varies year-to-year.  He generally produces between 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of coffee per year which he sells at $6 per pound on the specialty coffee market.  That means, on good years, he makes about $24,000; on bad years he brings in about $12,000.  Cesar admits that this is a labor of love, not money.  During the five or so years that he has been in the business, he has still put in more money than he's made.  He actually brings in most of his money from the hostal and coffee tours.

I can do without wine.  However, I'm now becoming more cognizant that I would not do so well if coffee disappeared.  I was luckily enough to come in to contact with Cesar.  He meticulously showed me a small but important part of each of the processes of coffee production.  I am now a little bit smarter and more aware of the coffee I'm consuming.  

You can check his webpage out at luchuzacafe.com.