Frogs in the night, in the august rain, that mist rising up over the sound like heat, steam, silver scales and fish tails. The Sound, the sound of croaking in the woods or the creek or the ethereal space between. Well, you do not know where the frogs are or where they are screaming from, singing from, but the song is about picking some point in the distance and then obliterating your body, the sight in your eyes, until you are somewhere and something else. There are girls in the woods crawling in the creek looking for them, fashioning their crutches, putting it all back together again.
In El Salvador there is a lagoon of frogs. They might be the water and the air and the trees and the hills, thousands of slippery bodies squirming, dancing, fighting, performing sonnets and plays and procedural dramas. Who knows what goes on in the darkened brush as the moon heaves itself across the sky? Pollard’s August Coffee of the Month, Cerro Las Ranas, translates to ‘Hill of Frogs’ and is named after its farm’s lagoon.
The farm, JASAL, is in the municipality Apaneca. The region is coupled with white Spanish
churches, virescent mountains, a mirrored oval lake like an eyeball.
JASAL is a family-owned operation in which the owner, Jose Antonio Salaverria, and his sons manage the farm year-round and oversee quality control in the cupping room. Through a honey process, or pulped natural, ripened coffee cherries are pulped then dried on clay patios while still covered in mucilage. The beans are constantly turned for even drying.
Subscribe today to Pollard’s Coffee of the Month Club before September 1st and receive Cerro Las Ranas. It will be available to nonsubscribers after then, but for a higher price, and may sell out fast. Hear the frog croak; let it lull you forward. Subscribe for a year, six months, three months one month, or until canceled. Do you feel the amphibian hypnosis setting in yet?
Variety: Bourbon, Pacamara, Sarchimor, Pacas, Catuai, and Caturra
Region: Apaneca, Ahuachapán, El Salvador
Altitude: 1450 - 1780 msl
Soil: Volcanic loam
Process: Pulped natural
Harvest: November - March
Certification: Conventional
Tasting Notes: Plum jam, cherry, honey
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