Castillo Pola El Salvador is one of those coffees that makes you understand in just one sip why anaerobic fermentation has changed specialty coffee in recent years.
The producer: Carlos Pola
Carlos Pola is one of the key names in Salvadoran specialty coffee. He bought Finca Las Brisas in Juayúa (Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range) in 1997, left the textile industry in 2012 to dedicate himself to coffee full-time, and since then has applied to coffee the practices he learned in his other career: obsessive quality control, traceability, data, data, and more data.
Today, Las Brisas has its own laboratory on the farm, experiments with mycorrhizal fungi for soil health, and works on various processes in parallel (washed, honey, natural, anaerobic) on the same variety to understand what each one extracts from the bean.
The variety: Bourbon Castillo
Bourbon Castillo is a hybrid between classic Bourbon and Castillo (a Colombian variety resistant to rust). It combines the tasting complexity of Bourbon with the productivity and resilience of Castillo. It is a relatively modern and uncommon variety in El Salvador.
The process: natural anaerobic 8 days
The cherry is introduced whole into closed tanks without oxygen and ferments for 8 days. Only after that is it dried in the sun.
This long and controlled fermentation causes the sugars and aromatic compounds of the pulp to concentrate in the bean, multiplying the fruity intensity and sweetness.
Tasting notes
Black cherry, panela, cocoa, red grapes, maple syrup. Medium-high body, deep sweetness, more mature fruit acidity than citrus. An intense, wine-like, almost liqueur-like cup. SCA 86.
How to prepare it
We recommend V60 so that the clarity of the filtration allows the complexity of the process to shine. Here’s the recipe.
If you prepare it in Aeropress, try inverted + 1:14 ratio + 2:30 total time. It is one of the coffees that responds best to the Aeropress.
More about our coffees
- Bourbon Pola El Salvador — from the same producer but honey process
- Bourbon Mora Silvestre Colombia — co-fermented from Huila
- Coffee processes: washed, honey, natural, anaerobic
