Los Pirineos is a historic, family‑run specialty coffee farm on the Tecapa volcano in Usulután, eastern El Salvador, with coffee cultivation dating back more than 125 years. It has been stewarded by the Baraona family for generations and is now led by fifth‑generation producer Diego Baraona, following the legacy of his father, Gilberto. The farm benefits from high elevation, volcanic soils, abundant but well‑distributed rainfall, and strong sunlight, which together promote slow cherry maturation and complex flavor development.
The farm is renowned for its exceptional diversity of coffee varieties, maintaining one of El Salvador’s largest private seed banks with dozens of cultivars. It was an early adopter of on‑farm processing infrastructure and is known for meticulous experimentation with washed, honey, natural, anaerobic, and carbonic maceration processes, using raised‑bed drying and tight moisture control to preserve quality. Los Pirineos has earned numerous national and international distinctions, including many Cup of Excellence placements, and is highly regarded by specialty coffee roasters worldwide for its consistent quality and innovative approach.
We have been working with Diego since the passing of his father, Gilberto and really enjoy how he has inherited the incredible work from Gilberto and improving on it with the help of his team at Los Pirineos. We always enjoyed the clean, sweet and gentle fruit tones from the Bourbon variety. Shade dried for 45-50 days, they truly reflect the hardwork that Diego has put in to elevate the flavours of this coffee.
This is a very interesting variety, Orange Pacamara. which is a mutated variety from the parent Pacamara variety that we love so much from this farm. The late Gilberto described seeing these Pacamara trees in his farm that started to have mature cherries developing to an orange rone instead of the usual red colour and started to collect the seeds and planted 25 thousand trees back in 2020. Distinctive by the size of its large bean size, the Pacamara itself is a hybrid of 2 varieties - Pacas and Maragogype, developed in El Salvador and we always prized the ones from Los Pirineos and the Chalatenango region for their vibrant and jucy cup characteristics. This lot was picked and dried on raised beds for up to 40 days, developing deep berry flavours and tropical fruit tones and dense sweetness in the cup.
