Dawn — The Awakening Chapter

$50.00

Dawn — The Awakening Chapter

Name: Dawn — The Awakening Chapter
Brand: Floranza USA
Price: 50.00 USD
Availability: InStock

100% Pacamara (arabica) · Chalatenango, El Salvador

For the first quiet hour.

★★★★★ (3)

A single-varietal Pacamara from our family's plots in Chalatenango, grown at 4,921 feet (1,500 m) in the northern highlands on some of the highest coffee land in El Salvador. Semi-washed and roasted medium to protect its aromatics: golden caramel and mandarin citrus, bright and clean.

Origin: Chalatenango, El Salvador
Elevation: 1,500 MASL
Process: Semi-Washed
Tasting notes: Golden caramel & mandarin citrus
Weight: 397 g

$50.00 Ships within the U.S. only, packed by our team in Miami and Washington, D.C

Shipping: $10 flat within the U.S. · Free over $149.99 · Ships from Miami, FL and Washington, D.C

The details

Origin Chalatenango·El Salvador

Altitude 1,500 MASL

Varietal 100% Pacamara

Process Semi-Washed

Roast Medium

Tasting Notes Golden Caramel·Mandarin Citrus

Profile Bright·Smooth·Balanced·Lightly Sweet

Pair With Orange-zest madeleines·Baklava·Creme brulee·Almond croissant

Inspired by: First Light, Morning Dew, Open Sky, Wild Bloom

Reveals notes: Honeyed Citrus, Golden Florals, Soft Cacao Warmth

The terroir

Chalatenango lies in the Alotepec–Metapán range in the north: older, more eroded ground than the western volcanoes, with deep fertile clay loam in place of young volcanic ash. It is cooler and wetter than anywhere else in Salvadoran coffee, and the harvest finishes last in the country. At 4,921 feet (1,500 m) ripening is slow, which builds acidity and clarity rather than weight.

The variety

Pacamara was released by ISIC, El Salvador's coffee research institute, in 1958: Pacas crossed with Maragogipe, both arabica. The beans are enormous, the trees yield poorly and hold up badly against leaf rust, which is why the variety stays scarce and expensive. What it returns is aromatic intensity: citrus, jasmine and a syrupy body unusual for Central America.

In the cup

Semi-washed sits between washed and honey: the skin comes off and part of the mucilage is left on through drying. It keeps the transparency of a washed coffee while adding a layer of sweetness. Held at a medium roast to protect the volatile aromatics, Dawn leads with golden caramel and mandarin citrus and finishes clean.

The awakening expression of Floranza

Luminous, refined, full of promise.

Where Salvadoran Pacamara made its name

Chalatenango is the region behind El Salvador's most decorated Pacamaras. Lots from these northern highlands have taken first place in the country's national competitions repeatedly over the past two decades, which is why the region now sets the reference point for what the variety can do here.

Altitude

Most of the region's coffee sits above 4,593 feet (1,400 m), earning the Strictly Hard Bean grade. Dawn grows at 4,921 feet (1,500 m), high enough that ripening slows and both sugar and acidity concentrate in the bean.

Microclimate

Bordering Honduras, the range runs cooler and wetter than the western volcanoes: roughly 10–23°C, with 1,500 to 2,500 mm of rain a year. The wide gap between cold nights and warm days stretches ripening out, and the harvest here finishes later than anywhere else in El Salvador.

Soil

Where Apaneca is young volcanic ash, Chalatenango is older ground — deep, fertile clay loam over heavily weathered terrain. That difference is legible in the cup, pushing Pacamara away from nut and cocoa and toward flowers and bright fruit.

Apaneca Pacamara — as in Aluna

Young volcanic Andisol on warmer, lower slopes. Rounder and heavier in the cup: hazelnut, cocoa and caramel, soft acidity, a thick and settled body.

Chalatenango Pacamara — Dawn

Clay loam, cooler and wetter, latest harvest in the country. Brighter and more aromatic: citrus, florals and stone fruit over a syrupy body, with acidity that carries through the finish.

Regenerative farming

On the slope

The native shade canopy stays standing. Cover crops hold the ground between rows, coffee pulp is composted and returned to the plot, tillage is kept to a minimum, and bare soil is never left exposed through the rains.

In the soil

Organic matter rises, and with it the soil's capacity to hold water and exchange nutrients. Living roots and fungal networks stay intact, which matters on volcanic Andisols, where much of the phosphorus is bound up in the clay and needs soil biology to release it.

In the tree

Deeper, better-colonized root systems reach moisture through the dry months. Shade lowers leaf temperature and buffers heat stress, so the tree is not pushed into the boom-and-bust cycles that exhaust it. Healthier trees stay productive for far longer.

In the cup

Shade slows ripening by weeks. A cherry that matures slowly lays down more sugar and more aromatic precursors before it is picked, and it ripens more evenly along the branch, which is what makes selective hand-picking worth the labor.

Family micro-lots

Aluna, Dawn and Sunset are micro-lots, grown and kept separate by our own family on our own land. Volume programs are a separate tier — see Partners.

What a micro-lot is

A micro-lot is a batch harvested, processed, dried and roasted entirely on its own, often from a single plot or a single section of one farm. It never joins a blending tank with anyone else's coffee. That is why it can be traced back to one family and one slope rather than to a country.

Who grows it

We do. Floranza coffee is grown on our family's own land in Apaneca and Chalatenango, on holdings of about a hectare and a half — the scale typical to these ranges. The same family has worked these plots from one generation to the next, since coffee reached the region in the 1880s.

Why it costs more

Our slopes are too steep to mechanize, so we pick every cherry by hand, returning to the same trees repeatedly because a branch ripens unevenly over several weeks. Keeping each lot separate also costs us the volume premium we would earn by pooling the harvest.

What it buys you

Traceability that holds up to questions, and a cup that shifts a little from year to year because it is one slope's harvest rather than a regional average. Because we farm it ourselves, nothing passes through a collection point or a broker between the plot and the roaster: the people who pick the cherry are the people whose name is on the bag.

How we process the coffee at our farm

Growing, milling, drying, roasting and packing all happen on the mountain. Only the finished coffee travels.

Picking

We pick by hand and take only ripe cherry, returning to the same trees over several weeks because a branch never ripens all at once. Nothing is stripped.

Pulped the same day

Cherry goes to the mill the day it is picked. The skin comes off and the sticky mucilage stays on the seed: fully for our honey lots, partly for the semi-washed.

Dried slowly

The coffee dries on raised beds, turned by hand through the day so it dries evenly down to a stable moisture level. Rushing this stage is what flattens a cup.

Rested in parchment

The lot rests in its parchment husk, which protects the bean in storage. We hull close to the roast date rather than months ahead.

Selected by hand

Every bean passes the sorting table. Broken beans, insect damage, black and sour beans and quakers — the immature seeds that never caramelize — are pulled out one by one, then the lot is graded for size.

Roasted and packed

Only the selected beans reach the roaster, in small batches, on a profile built for that lot rather than a house curve. Packed immediately after roasting, at origin.