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Direct Trade Coffee
From our Farm to You
Almost all of the gourmet coffee available to consumers today does not provide details about the location and specific growing conditions of the product. This coffee provides you with a direct connection to the farmer (“Direct Trade”). When you buy this coffee, we can provide you with information regarding when the coffee was picked and who was involved directly in both the harvest and the processing of the final product.
Café de Doña Ella is an effort to bring you the best quality coffee, from the Highlands of El Salvador. It is farmed and processed by Manuel Alberto Santana-Bendix, a resident of Flagstaff who also owns his family’s small coffee farm in El Salvador (Finca Grano de Oro). On the farm we grow the best varieties of Coffea arabica. Previously, we mainly used Burbon variety, arguably the best variety of coffee, until climate change-driven fungal infections decimated many coffee farms and trees. Now, instead of using huge amounts of fungicides, we use tree varieties that are more resistant to the fungus, while maintaining quality of taste.
Evidence of the quality of Café de Doña Ella is that the coffee from Finca Grano de Oro placed among the top 20 winners in the 2004 “Cup of Excellence,” an international juried competition.
Rather than using chemicals for insect and plant control, Mr. Santana-Bendix uses only biological controls (wasps and mechanical thinning). The coffee is shade grown under a mixed canopy (great for birds), and is processed by hand on the farm, employing several workers at fair wages. The coffee is roasted in El Salvador under Manuel’s supervision. The result is a Gourmet-ranked coffee. Learn More