El Salvador Organic Coffee

El Salvador coffee has unique spicy overtones, with medium body. An interesting, surprisingly different coffee. Give it a try! 100% pure El Salvadoran coffee. Rainforest Alliance Certified.

Medium  Roast Available as whole coffee beans or fresh ground coffee.

$15.80 Buy Now

Coffee has fueled the Salvadoran economy and shaped its history for more than a century. It was first cultivated for domestic use early in the nineteenth century, and by 1880, had become the only export crop.

El Salvador has the right ingredients to produce excellent coffee - the soil, mountain altitude and the climate. The reputation of El Salvador coffee was marred for years by their inability to deliver high quality coffee in an unstable political climate. 

Coffee growers suffered from guerrilla attacks, extortion, and the imposition of "war taxes" during the 1980s. Although most coffee production took place in the western section of El Salvador, coffee growers in the eastern region were sometimes compelled to strike bargains with the guerrillas. During the 1984-85 harvest, for example, the guerrillas added to their "war tax" demand a threat to attack any plantation they thought underpaid workers. They demanded that workers receive the equivalent of US$4.00 per 100 pounds picked, a US$1.00 increase over what was then the going rate. The fact that growers negotiated with the guerrillas--while the government looked the other way--demonstrated the continuing importance of coffee export revenue to both the growers and the government.

A succession of presidents throughout the last half of the 19th century agreed on the promotion of coffee as El Salvador's predominant cash crop, new railroads and port facilities were established to support the coffee trade, and communal landholdings were eliminated to facilitiate more coffee production.

The coffee industry in El Salvador grew from that point. The democratic movements have increased the quality of the coffee, and it is now their main export crop, accounting for nearly one half the export income for El Salvador.