Shade Coffee

Finca Santa Leticia produces, on her 230 acres, only shade coffee, of which there are two varieties: Borbon and Pacamara. Borbon is a direct derivative of “old arabica”, which produces a cup quality of delicate taste, clean, agreeable exquisite aroma, and added to these, excellent acidity and body. Our Pacamara,("Exceptionally pleasant cup, lightly full bodied and fragrant...", "Les Cafes Produit Dans Le Monde", Jobin, Philippe, P.642), which is a giant bean was created by Salvadoran coffee scientists in 1957 and is a derivative of two different varieties; Pacas (a Salvadoran variety, from the Borbon) and Maragogipe (introduced from Nyasalandia in 1901 and from there to Blue Mountain of Jamaica and Guatemala in 1903, Haarer,A.E. "Modern Coffee Production"Page 480).

Our coffee is produced from 4000 feet to 5700 feet altitude, this hybrid, when grown at high altitudes like ours, produces a coffee striking in appearance and most important of all, with excellent taste.

In 1996, we participated with our Pacamara in "The taste of the harvest "of the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Fair in Minneapolis, our cup is strikingly different, in which there is a tang of spicy taste in the cup, a cup which is delicate in taste, aroma, stupendous acidity and unparalleled body.

Did you know that more less one hectare of shade coffee produces 60pounds of fresh oxygen a day and every day for the whole world to use! We are also hosts to more than 120 different species of migratory birds, so important for our western hemisphere. The biodiversity of shade coffee is so impressive that scientists have found in just two shade trees alone, less than two hundred meters apart, 259 different species of insects.

Of the rainfall we receive only 4% of it runs off our land, compared to 72% runoff in farms without shade trees, our precious soil doesn't erode, on the contrary, every year we have more, because of the hundreds of tons of soil per hectare produced by our shade and forests trees!!

So you see we produce more than delicious coffee for you, we produce life for our earth, we help keep our little planet, a little better than it would be without our coffee