What is the Pacas variety?

Pacas is a compact Arabica variety discovered in 1949 on the Pacas family farm in El Salvador. A natural mutation of Red Bourbon, it grows as a dwarf plant, making manual harvesting easier on steep volcanic slopes, and consistently produces clean, balanced cups well regarded in specialty coffee competitions.

The Pacas variety takes its name from the Salvadoran family on whose land it was first identified in 1949, in the Santa Ana region. It is a single-gene mutation of Red Bourbon — a phenomenon also responsible for the Caturra (Brazil) and Villa Sarchi (Costa Rica) varieties. The defining trait of Pacas is its dwarf stature: plants rarely exceed 2.5 metres, compared to 3–4 metres for a standard Bourbon, allowing denser planting and more manageable harvesting on El Salvador's steep volcanic terrain.

Agronomically, Pacas outperforms Bourbon in wind resistance, a recurring challenge at altitude in El Salvador. Its yield per hectare is higher than Bourbon, though modern hybrids like Catimor still surpass it. Cherry ripening occurs typically between November and January in El Salvador, enabling selective hand-picking that maximises cup quality.

In the cup, Pacas expresses classic Bourbon characteristics: marked sweetness, medium to full body, bright but integrated acidity, with notes of caramel, hazelnut and occasional red fruit. This makes it a regular contender at Cup of Excellence competitions, where Salvadoran Pacas lots frequently place in the top rankings. A lesser-known fact: the globally coveted Pacamara variety was created by crossing Pacas with Maragogype in the 1950s by El Salvador's ISIC coffee research institute — producing a large-bean cultivar with exceptional aromatic complexity.

Today Pacas remains one of El Salvador's dominant varieties alongside Bourbon and Pacamara, cultivated primarily in the departments of Santa Ana, Ahuachapán and Sonsonate at elevations between 800 and 1,500 metres, where mineral-rich volcanic soils contribute to aromatic depth in the final cup.

Pacas vs Red Bourbon: agronomic comparison

Pacas: El Salvador's Compact Bourbon and Its Role in Pacamara's Creation

Pacas is one of those coffee varieties that achieved greater fame as a parent than as a variety in its own right — not because it lacks merit, but because its offspring Pacamara captured the specialty world's attention so completely that the parent variety has been somewhat eclipsed. Discovered in 1949 on the farm of Fernando Alberto Pacas in El Salvador's Santa Ana region, Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon with the same dwarfing gene that independently appeared in Caturra in Brazil. The compact plant structure — shorter internodes, denser branching — allows higher planting densities and easier mechanical harvesting compared to tall Bourbon, making it agronomically practical for medium-scale production. El Salvador's coffee industry embraced it rapidly, and by the 1960s it had become one of the country's dominant commercial varieties.

The cup profile of Pacas closely parallels Bourbon, which is not surprising given the single-gene dwarfing mutation that differentiates them: sugar concentrations and aromatic profiles are essentially those of Bourbon, with clean sweetness, balanced acidity, and a warm, rounded body. High-altitude Pacas from Santa Ana or Chalatenango in El Salvador can score above 86 on the SCA scale, producing cups with milk chocolate, red fruit, and a clean, citrus-forward acidity that rewards careful brewing. Its Cup of Excellence performance has been consistent over the years, typically appearing in the mid-range of competition scores — not the explosive outlier that Pacamara can be, but reliably excellent in a more understated way.

Practical Recommendations

For enthusiasts interested in El Salvador's coffee industry specifically, Pacas provides useful context for understanding how the country's specialty character developed. It's part of a Bourbon-centric heritage that shaped El Salvador's reputation for clean, balanced, warm-profiled coffees before the Pacamara explosion redirected attention toward more dramatic cup characteristics. Finding single-variety Pacas from El Salvador in specialty retail is possible but requires deliberate searching — most importers who carry Salvadoran coffees can source it. Brew it as a washed pour-over at 92°C and compare it mentally to a Bourbon from Rwanda or Guatemala: the family resemblance is clear, and the terroir differences between El Salvador and East Africa are equally illuminating.