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Listen again to Coffee Real cupping on the BBC

Coffee Real is very pleased to announce an alliance with Tea Forté UK and is now able to offer Tea Forté teas and Tea Forté accessories to its wholesale Customers as part of its food service packages and its online Customers a range of retail packs.

Coffee Real is sponsoring Lynsey Harley from Exchange Coffee - who we believe - is one of hottest favorites to win the UK barista championships.

Hidden between the mountains and volcanos in the department of Solola is the village of Pasajquim.

There are two main producing farms - both around 2 hector (very small) and a number of tiny surrounding farms at 1 hector and below. The plots are carefully tended in rich organic soil which is fertilized by using the cherry pulp mixed with other organic waste to create organic fertilizer.

The two main farms have their own wet processing facilities which both run small pulping machines. The crop is picked and delivered by the producing families to either of the wet mills.

The producing families fully understand the importance of delivering ripe cherries to the mill and since the plots are picked by the very families that own them they pick more precisely and limit the number of green cherries picked and waste given away to green.

Most of the coffee is patio dried and at the peak of the coffee harvest patio space for drying is at a premium and every flat surface suitable for drying coffee is used. Remarkably one of the main farms has a small single hatch wood fired drum dryer that is used to reduce the drying time. The dryer is fired on the annual pruning of the coffee trees and other sustainable sources.

Since the mills are very small and everything is hands on by the producing families, control is of the optimum and quality is the end result. For example – most wet coffee mills use 5 classification points to make sure the coffee is of the utmost quality, but in Pasajquim they use 7 points of classification. We would describe this village as poor by any standard and we are very keen to support their efforts by buying their wonderful coffee.

When you enter through the farm gates of Santa Clara (we visited in 2010) the first thing that strikes you is the manicured lower coffee growing areas and surrounding gardens. Nothing is out of place.