Sunshine, El Salvador and Coffee Cherries 2022

  January 2022 found Amos and I (Jaci) winging our way to El Salvador for a vacation/Coffee business trip/ and visiting my old friends as well as introducing them to Amos. (For those of you that don't know, I spent 4.5 years in El Salvador as a girl growing up.) I hadn't been back in over 6 years, yet the sights, smells and people hadn't changed. During our visit we went hiking in the coffee plantations and picked handfuls of the bright red cherries. Amos was in his glory never having experienced the beginnings of coffee first hand. :) Coffee plants need a balance of sun, shade and wind breakers so normally there are grid like designs in the hills from the trees planted to protect the coffee plants. El Salvador is full of mountainous terrain and the steepest hillsides seem to be the land designated for growing coffee! We also toured a very large Coffee Mill, where many farms send their picked cherries to be sorted, washed, and/or dried or any combination of the 3! We also got a chance to cup 11 or so different El Salvador coffees at this Mill. For more details and information just talk to Amos :) He would love to share his knowledge and experience. 

Ripe Coffee Cherries (above)   

 Coffee beans already hulled, drying in the sunshine at the Mill.

 So this feels like a very brief report, but just wanted give you all a little glimpse. 

-Amos and Jaci Gillespie