Tim Wendelboe - Los Pirineos Geisha | El Salvador
Description
El Salvador — Diego Baraona Los Pirineos Geisha (Washed)
Tastes Like — 🍫 Milk Chocolate • 🍊 Tangerine • 🌸 Florals
DETAILS
- Producer: Diego Baraona
- Farm: Los Pirineos
- Region: Tecapa-Chinameca, Usulután, El Salvador
- Varietal: Geisha
- Process: Washed
- Altitude: 1,200–1,600 MASL
- Harvest: February 2025
INTRO
From Diego Baraona's Los Pirineos on the slopes of the Tecapa volcano in Usulután — one of El Salvador's most storied and celebrated coffee farms, and a slightly different expression of Geisha. Where most Geisha lots lean into delicate florality and light body, this Honduran-style expression delivers a heavier mouthfeel, warm milk chocolate, tangerine brightness, and a beautiful floral depth. In the cup: milk chocolate, tangerine, and florals.
THE PRODUCER
Los Pirineos has been in the Baraona family for over 130 years — a 150-hectare farm perched on top of the Tecapa volcano, where rich volcanic soils, partial native shade, and elevations ranging from 1,200 to 1,600 MASL have enabled Gilberto Baraona, and now his son Diego, to cultivate over 80 different coffee varieties with exceptional results. The farm is perhaps most famous for its Pacamara, which has won multiple Cup of Excellence awards, but it is the Bourbon Elite — the oldest Bourbon trees in El Salvador — that first drew Tim Wendelboe to Los Pirineos at a Cup of Excellence auction in 2010.
Diego Baraona is a fifth-generation coffee farmer who inherited the farm unexpectedly at just 25, when his father Gilberto passed away suddenly. At the time, Diego was living in Barcelona — studying and building his own life. Faced with the choice of selling a 130-year family legacy or returning home, he chose to come back. Since taking over in 2020, Diego has not only maintained the exceptional quality his father built but taken it further, with clear vision for developing the farm across his lifetime. All coffees at Los Pirineos are grown, processed, milled, packed, and exported entirely in-house.
THE PROCESS
The Washed process at Los Pirineos involves:
🍒 Hand-picking — Cherries selectively picked by hand, with unripe and damaged cherries removed before processing 🔧 Depulping — Cherries depulped before fermentation 🧪 Overnight dry fermentation — Beans dry-fermented overnight 💧 Washing — Mucilage thoroughly washed from the parchment the following morning 🌑 Shade-dried raised beds — Dried slowly on raised beds covered with shade nets to prolong drying, improve shelf life, and produce a cleaner cup
The shade-dried raised-bed drying is the defining step — by covering the drying beds with shade nets, Diego prolongs the drying process significantly, slowing moisture loss and producing the clean, structured cup quality and extended shelf life that Los Pirineos coffees are celebrated for.
THE CUP
A beautifully warm and slightly unexpected expression of Geisha from one of El Salvador's most historic farms — milk chocolate richness and tangerine brightness layered with elegant florals, with a heavier mouthfeel and refined sweetness that set this lot apart from its more austere Panamanian counterparts. A coffee that tells a story of family, legacy, and vision.
Flavour Notes
🍫 Milk Chocolate 🍊 Tangerine 🌸 Florals
