Lot 2: Santa Rosa J.Raul Rivera, S.A. De C.V.

Jorge Raul Rivera, Santa Rosa’s co-owner, founded the farm with his brother, Jose Roberto, in 1979. It was
not the most auspicious year to begin a big project in El Salvador. First a decade-long civil war kicked into
gear, then international coffee prices slumped to a disastrous level. The Rivera brothers put aside their dream
of a world-class coffee farm, and established a pine tree plantation on the spot.
Jorge Raul never gave up on coffee, however, so when El Salvador hosted its first Cup of Excellence in 2003,
he and his brother finally planted the coffee farm they had originally imagined. The brothers took advantage
of this clean slate, and planted Pacamara, going so far as to favor plants displaying Maragogype impulses.
They also retained plenty of their forest to provide the necessary shade for coffee trees in Chalatenango’s hot
and dry climate.
Over the next decade, Jorge Raul immersed himself in coffee, going so far as to teach coffee cultivation and
processing at the Universidad de El Salvador in San Salvador. All the while, his farm was maturing, and his
vision was materializing as reality. The Rivera brothers evangelized the benefits of specialty coffee to their
neighbors, and today Chalatenango is an up-and-coming coffee region. But that coveted Cup of Excellence
prize still eluded them.
Jorge Raul Rivera passed away in May 2013, as the coffee blossoms opened to the spring rains. A year later,
we tasted these Pacamara delicacies on a cupping table in San Salvador, and bought them on the spot. A few
weeks later, the Santa Rosa placed first in the Cup of Excellence, confirmation of a life well spent.
It is a property of 56 hectares of extension that were reforested in the year 2000 with coniferous forest. In the
year 2006 14 hectares were planted with coffee. The planted forest was used as shade for coffee, and this is
its second year of production. The plantation was established with the mindset producing a coffee that could
win the first place in the Cup of Excellence. For this reason a genetically improved Pacamara variety was
selected to start this farm, and only the plants that showed dominace of Maragogype were planted.