El Diamante ‘The diamond’, has a flat topography, which eases working the land. It is the lowest farm, between 1200 and 1250 m.a.s.l. and the reason the farm was called ‘The Diamond’. Coffee from the Muyshondts' other two farms Topacio & Ausol, are transported by truck to el Diamante to be processed in the wet-mill. This part of the farm has the easiest road access and the offices and wet-mill are located here. On the diamond, Leopoldo has planted Pacas and Bourbon varieties. Both varieties are traditional. Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon, similar to Caturra in Brazil and Villa Sarchi in Costa Rica. Pacas has a single-gene mutation that causes the plant to grow smaller (dwarfism). This is it’s principal virtue: the plant’s small size leads to higher potential yields and the possibility of placing plants closer together to increase total fruit production on a farm. The variety was discovered in 1949 on a farm owned by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador. In 1960, the Salvadoran Institute for Coffee Research (ISIC) began a program of pedigree selection (selection of individual plants through successive generations) for Pacas. It is still widely grown in the country; it accounts for about 25% of the country's coffee production.
More than a century ago, two coffee-producer families were united by their offspring´s marriage: Apolinario and Adelaida de Magaña’s son, Francisco Magaña Herrera; and José Antonio and Gordiana de Cáceres’s daughter, Evangelina Cáceres Magaña. Both family heads were very active in the production, processing and trading off coffee, and both had their lands in the beautiful mountains of Juayúa, Sonsonate in the Ilamatepec Mountain range. The family has a long history in the town, constructing the towns church.
El Topacio is located near Juayua, a traditional coffee growing town, in El Salvador. Because of its famous gastronomic festival held each weekend the town attracts many tourists. Juayua or comes from Xuayuat, a indigenous term for the orchids also known as San Sebastian, Juayua (Xuayuat) means place of orchids or purple flowers. In 1940, professor Larde and Larin made the observation that the coffee shade trees were dressed and armed with these beautiful flowers.
Today the farm belongs to the fourth generation Maria Elena, but is run by Leopoldo Muyshondt (5th generation).
October 16, 2020
