Pirineos, Usulutan, El Salvador

About

Tasting the Baraona family’s Pacamaras is like tasting a piece of the history of speciality coffee. Today, the farm is run by son Diego, but it’s impossible to miss his father, Gilberto, a pioneer in the development of this variety. Before tragically succumbing to Covid-19, Gilberto Baraona was one of the country’s most renowned producers. He was one of the first to plant Pacamara on his farms, as is still the case today at Los Pirineos.  Since taking over the family farm, his son Diego has continued the tradition, producing Pacamaras of excellent quality. Of course, with the same rigour and passion that drove his father to win several awards for this variety. Here, a semi-washed version of the Baraona family’s famous Pacamaras, for a floral cup with notes of caramel and lemon.

Los Pirineos

The farm takes its name from the Pyrenees mountain range between France and Spain. Los Pirineos is a group of farms covering 80 hectares. Coffee is grown on 60 hectares and 10 hectares of wild forest are preserved. Today, Los Pirineos comprises 17 micro-farms, including Las Palmas and La Cumbre.

If you go to the Los Pirineos farm, you’ll find 10 hectares devoted to growing top-quality coffees, including the following varieties: red and yellow bourbon, tekisic, pacas, pacamara, colombia, catisic, icatu, casiopea, anacafe 14, laurina, heirloom

Baraona´s Family

Diego Baraona is the manager of Los Pirineos, the family farm he took over at the end of 2020. By his own admission, Diego grew up “next to coffee”. He is, in fact, part of the 5thᵉ generation of coffee growers.

If the farm is now a benchmark in speciality coffee, we owe it to Diego’s father, the visionary Gilberto Baraona. He was responsible for transforming the farm into a speciality coffee farm in the late 2000s.

In 2020, while Diego was studying engineering in Barcelona, Spain, Gilberto died suddenly of Covid-19. Gilberto was a very well-known producer in El Salvador, having won numerous awards including El Salvador Coffee Farmer of the Year 2018 and 17 Cup Of Excellence awards.

At the age of 25, Diego had a choice to make: continue his studies or take over the farm with his mother, Fabiola, and his brothers. A question of destiny? Perhaps it was. But, above all, the desire to continue his father’s work, and to perpetuate the family tradition of quality coffee: “When my father left, he left us a great legacy with Los Pirineos. It’s a model farm, focused on quality. Today, I’m delighted to have taken over the running of Los Pirineos”.