STOW Coffee Roasters
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Years ago, on one of her coffee estates, Marija Pacas discovered five mysterious coffee trees growing independently in a plantation of bourbon coffee trees. She suspected that these trees were something special and thought of the geisha variety. She immediately contacted the owner of the Proud Mary roastery, Nolan Hirte from Australia. As the geisha variety was not yet grown anywhere in El Salvador at the time, the unexpected discovery of this highly sought after variety was astounding to Maria. After tasting "cupping", Hirte was convinced that it was a geisha variety and immediately bought the entire quantity. But when he went to see the coffee trees, he began to doubt his belief that she was a geisha. Because Marija wanted to make sure, she had the coffee DNA analyzed in a laboratory in Italy. The DNA results revealed that coffee is 70% identical to geisha, with the remaining 30% DNA representing something previously unknown, the closest being a rare variety called agaro. But that's where the origin story ends. How these five trees arrived from the Agaro region of Ethiopia to the Finca Los Bolletos estate in El Salvador remains a mystery. The trees themselves are more than 70 years old, so it is very likely that the person who contributed to their transfer across the world is no longer alive. Since it is a completely new variety, Marija Pacas named it bernardina after Rupert Bernardino Merche, manager of the Finca Los Bolletos farm, who first discovered these five mysterious trees. Bernardina coffee is today a real gem among coffee connoisseurs. Its rarity and exceptionality have attracted the attention of coffee lovers around the world.
Passion Fruit
Green Grape
Chocolate
Type
Single Origin
Origin
Santa Ana, El Salvador
Roast
Medium
Species
Arabica
Varieties
Bernardina
Process
Natural
Altitude
1600m
Producer
Maria and Alfredo Pacas
Farm
El Ritiro