Pacamara coffee beans are huge, and these Pacamara beans are honey-processed. Hence, big honey. Breaking that down a bit more, in the honey process, coffee producers depulp the skin off of the coffee seed, but leave some or most of the sticky inner fruit (honey) on the bean for drying. It splits the difference between natural process (beans dried in the cherry) and washed process (all the fruit removed and washed off before drying), and when done well, honey-processed coffees can exhibit some of the best qualities of both. Fruity, but not as intense as a natural, and clean like a washed process, but often with a touch more body. And Pacamara is a variety of arabica coffee. It’s a cross between Pacas, a more standard-size (and traditional-tasting) variety common in El Salvador, and Maragogype, the original “elephant bean” and a natural mutation found in Brazil in the 1870s. Pacamara has great flavor potential, but can be a bit tricky to roast. The beans are bigger, and often a touch less dense, and this affects the thermodynamics of roasting in a way that we’re not qualified to explain, and would take way to long for a coffee bio. Anywho, we like this coffee, and the folks behind it. We're in our third season soucring coffee from Cafénor, a group of farmers and mill in Northwestern El Salvador Cafénor is a socially-minded private wet and dry mill that aims to produce coffee as ecologically as possible. Founded by Alejandro Valiente and operated by Alejandro and his daughter Valeria, the mill itself, where Cafénor processes coffee cherry or purchases fully-dried coffee from nearby producers and prepares it for export, is carbon-negative. This Pacamara was grown by several farmers in Metapan, and processed by Alejandro and the team at Cafénor. While our washed lot from the group, Productores Cafénor, is also great, Big Honey is, well, bigger. We’re tasting fudge, pecan pie, and black plum, with syrupy mouthfeel and sweetness as big as the beans themselves.