LIMITED RELEASE #04
Limited to just a few boxed 250g bags, Limited Release #04 is an exceptionally rare Salvadoran Starmaya from our long-term partner Tomas.
Naturally processed, it delivers fragrant florals, creamy almond and lingering milk chocolate.
Elegant, distinctive, and beautifully balanced, it’s a rare expression of El Salvador’s rarest varieties.
The Limited Release Series
The Limited Release Series showcases the most exceptional coffees we source each year. Produced in small quantities and released in numbered editions, the range highlights rare lots, distinctive varieties and exceptional processing, representing the highest tier of our sourcing programme.
Limited Release #04 is an exceptionally rare lot from our long-term partner Tomas in El Salvador. Rather than selecting the lot ourselves, for the first time ever we trusted Tomas to choose something truly special for us. The result is a naturally processed Starmaya, a rare F1 hybrid variety and the only one currently being produced in El Salvador.
In the cup, it is elegant and refined, opening with fragrant floral notes before developing into creamy almond and finishing with a lingering sweetness reminiscent of milk chocolate.
A genuinely rare and distinctive coffee, offering the chance to experience a variety few coffee drinkers will come across.
About The Varietal
Starmaya is an exceptionally rare F1 hybrid variety, and this lot has had an interesting journey from seed to cup.
This coffee comes from Finca Loma de Paja in El Salvador and reached us through our long-term partner, Tomas. The seeds were passed to him by a friend in Honduras, who had originally received them from Nicaragua.
F1 hybrids are relatively new to coffee farming, created by crossing genetically distinct varieties to combine desirable traits such as cup quality, high yields and disease resistance.
Starmaya is a cross between Marsellesa and a naturally male-sterile Arabica plant. Unusually for an F1 hybrid, it can be propagated from seed rather than through costly cloning, making it more accessible to producers.
Still relatively uncommon today, Starmaya’s combination of strong yields, resistance to coffee leaf rust and excellent cup quality means varieties like it could become increasingly important to the future of coffee production.