This very limited coffee is part of our Hill City Reserve program.
What makes this release especially personal is that I am an investor in Agronosotros, the company behind this farm. When I first learned about their mission, I knew I wanted to be part of it. Not just as a roaster, but as someone with real skin in the game.
Pacamara is a very unique and popular coffee in the Specialty Coffee industry. Grown primarily in El Salvador, where it frequently dominates the Cup of Excellence competitions for high cup quality,
The Boquete region in Panama is considered one of the best coffee regions in the world due to the perfect combination of weather and soil. But that is not the main reason we sell this particular coffee. We believe so much in the mission of the owner of this farm (Agronosotros)!
Agronosotros started in 2014, acquiring and rehabbing old, under-performing coffee farms in Boquete. Once purchased, they build out the farming and processing infrastructure and operations teams introducing high-quality specialty coffee (and chocolate) from Panama and Belize to the world.
A percentage of their operating profit is used to create a bonus pool to improve living conditions for the workers and their families. They are provided basics that we take for granted like electricity, running water, flushing toilets, showers and gas stoves. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
They provide increased salaries, performance-related bonuses, and Social Security, which provides medical, pension, and dental benefits that few (if any) coffee farm workers receive.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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They also introduced the Scholar Support Program to allow children and adults to attend school. The program provides the funds necessary at the beginning of each school year to buy uniforms, shoes, books, notebooks, backpacks, lunchboxes, and stationary. Without the funds to buy these basic necessities, the kids were not being sent to school.
The Horqueta 3 farm where this particular coffee is from is a 6.5-hectare farm (16 acres) and was acquired in March 2016. It currently has ~21k trees and with a dense shade of endemic tree species. Pacamara thrives here, producing a cup that genuinely has to be experienced to be believed.
