This small farm lies on the border of the Montecristo National Park in the north eastern corner of El Salvador. The Enrique Figueroa Lemus Foundation owns more than 650 acres, but the coffee growing portion of their land is only a few acres. The story sounds almost too good to be true: the family purchased the land to help conserve the pristine forest in this beautiful region. And just a few years ago, they planted a few acres of coffee to help support the project financially.

The forest doesn’t technically pay anything to the family, but coffee could be a source of revenue. So the Figueroas planted the Pacamara variety at a very high altitude. The coffee turned out to be brilliant. Here in Ozone Park we were blown away by the first sample. There was so much fruit and sparkle we couldn’t say no to this coffee, even though it was a truly tiny offering. All of the proceeds are paid back to the workers that both maintain the coffee and protect the cloud forest.

There are only about 260 pounds of this coffee from this farm in existence, and we bought every bean. This is clearly a very special lot, from a very special family, in a very, very special place.

Download the Info Sheet for La Encantada.