Heather Perry has a unique connection to this coffee. An opportunity to teach Barista classes for IWCA (International Woman in Coffee) brought her to the Las Mercedes farm in El Salvador. She was walking through the Pepinal 1 coffee trees when her then-boyfriend Ryan popped out behind the trees to propose to her. The ultimate surprise and proposal. We were drawn to Las Mercedes because of its great coffee, but we found what we fell in love with was the people, the process, and our shared passion for persistently striving to make coffee the best it can be. The Las Mercedes farm process begins with hand picking only ripe, mature cherries, and then carefully screening them before depulping to eliminate twigs, leaves, and other foreign material. At the wet mill, the cherries are received into ceramic tiled ditches, washed with fresh collected rainwater, and immediately fed into a pulper. These pulpers are designed to separate the bean from the flesh of the fruit while leaving each bean intact in its parchment envelope. Instead of the usual washed process, Las Mercedes uses a “Double Washed” method for the Pepinal 1, otherwise known as the “Kenya Method”. This method moves the coffee into a special water-filled tank to soak for an additional 24 hours. The tank is then emptied, and the process is repeated, filling the tank and letting the coffee rest for an additional 18-24 hours. After the second soak, the coffee is moved to the drying patios. Finca Las Mercedes is a beautiful coffee farm with owners dedicated to care for their community, their workers, and the environment with the same care that they invest into their coffee. Las Mercedes is committed to ecological care, making efforts to preserve natural wildlife, to maintain compliance with our certifications in the way that the mill’s by-products are disposed of, and to avoid contamination. In the last few years, the Ortiz family has prioritized preservation by planting native trees. 25 cents of every pound is invested back into the Las Mercedes community.