El Salvador, Feb 19th, 2023

5 harvests have come and gone since the last time I was in El Salvador. Being here now, it feels like everything and nothing has happened since 2018. El Salvador is the Country I began my coffee sourcing journey, and will forever have a special place in my heart. 

I met Rodrigo Dumont in 2014 while visiting for the first time. I bought 1,500 lbs that year, a lot of coffee for Cultivar Coffee at that time. This harvest, I will need to buy something like 11,000 lbs. To think of the everything and nothing that has happened since 1,500 lbs makes it seem a lot more like everything has happened. It’s a very gratifying thing, going back to a coffee producer year after year, always needing more. Knowing that the money we spend on this coffee is having a direct impact on the coffee community of Finca Malacara, or as what most of you probably think of as Tres Bourbon or El Salvador Red Bourbon. I get goosebumps just writing about this coffee, and how lucky I was to meet the Dumont family. It also makes me proud that after 9 years, we aren’t even done. We will continue to come back year after year saying, “we need more.” If you are reading this, you must understand that you have, and continue to play a financial roll in the lives of this community. There is a reason, after all that we source as much of our coffee as directly as possible.