Pacamara

Pacamara is a coffee variety made on purpose, in a laboratory, in El Salvador. It is a cross of two mutations: Pacas, a dwarf form of Bourbon found on a Salvadoran farm, and Maragogipe, a giant-bean form of Typica found in Brazil. The name is just the two parents jammed together — Paca + Mara.

The breeder was the Instituto Salvadoreño de Investigaciones del Café (ISIC), El Salvador’s national coffee research institute. World Coffee Research records the parentage as “Pacas x Maragogipe,” the breeder as ISIC, and places Pacamara genetically in the Bourbon–Typica group — which is exactly what a cross of a Bourbon mutant and a Typica mutant should be.¹

What the cross was after is easy to read off the parents. Maragogipe gives enormous beans but yields terribly; Pacas gives a short, dense-plantable tree with Bourbon cup quality. Pacamara is the attempt to keep the bean size without inheriting quite so much of Maragogipe’s fragility. As this wiki’s Typica note puts it, breeders “crossed it into Pacamara to get the bean size without quite so much of the fragility.”

They mostly succeeded on the cup and mostly failed on the farming. Both halves of that sentence are documented below.

To verify

The dates are not settled by any primary document found here. The World Coffee Research entry gives no year at all for when Pacamara was created or released , and the page still carries parentage and breeder but no date.

The 1958 cross is the sturdiest of the unofficial dates. It comes from an interview with Federico Bolaños, who works with the Pacas family and states flatly that “the Pacamara coffee varietal is a creation of the Salvadoran Institute for Coffee Research (ISIC) back in 1958”.² That is a named person close to the variety rather than an anonymous blog, but it is still recollection, not a breeding record.

The release date is a genuine four-way mess. The same interview says Pacamara was “released to coffee producers in the late 1980’s,” after about thirty years of selection; Roastopedia³ agrees on the late 1980s; Monarch Coffee says ISIC “present[ed] it to the world in 1980”;⁴ and this note’s research brief reports a late 1970s version circulating too. An internal release followed by wider distribution would explain the spread, but no ISIC bulletin was located to settle it.

One apparently technical document — a Sweet Maria’s library PDF on “the Bourbon & Pacamara case” — was fetched and turned out to be unreadable machine-scanned binary, so it settles nothing here either.⁵ Do not state 1958, 1980 or any release year as fact.

What the plant is like

Every figure below is from the World Coffee Research entry for Pacamara.

Trait	Pacamara
Genetic group	Bourbon–Typica related
Stature	Dwarf / compact
Leaf tip colour	Green or bronze
Bean size	Very large
Yield potential	Low
Nutrition requirement	Medium
First production	Year 3 after planting
Optimal altitude	Above 1,600 m within 5° of the equator; above 1,300 m at 5–15° latitude; above 1,000 m beyond 15°
Coffee leaf rust	Very high susceptibility
Ojo de Gallo (Mycena citricolor)	Highly susceptible
Coffee berry disease	Susceptible
Nematodes	Susceptible
Quality potential at high altitude	Exceptional
Ownership	Public variety

Read that table as a single trade-off. “Exceptional” is the top rung of World Coffee Research’s quality scale — the same rating Geisha holds, and a rung above the “Very Good” given to Bourbon. Everything else on the list is a liability. It yields low. It catches rust badly. It catches Ojo de Gallo — “rooster’s eye,” a fungus that punches pale circular holes in the leaves and thrives in the cool, wet, shaded high-altitude conditions Pacamara needs for its cup — worse than most. And it wants to be above 1,300 m, which is precisely where those conditions live.

So the variety only pays at the altitude where it is sickest. That is the whole economics of Pacamara in one line.

What it looks like in the field

The table above is trait ratings, not a description — World Coffee Research does not say what the plant actually looks like. The fullest published description comes from Federico Bolaños, director of coffee at Café Tuxpal and Viva Espresso, who works with the Pacas family in El Salvador — the family whose farm the Pacas parent was found on. He describes a medium-sized tree with thick foliage and short internodes — the gaps between leaf pairs along a branch are short, which is what makes a coffee tree look dense rather than leggy — carrying large leaves, long cherries with a small protuberance at the tip, and seeds that are “large and oval in shape”.

The seed is the part anyone handling the coffee actually notices. Pacamara beans are among the largest in commercial arabica, which is the whole reason the cross was made — and, as this wiki’s Maracaturra note records for the other big-bean hybrid, a very large bean is harder to roast evenly, because the outside browns before the centre is done.

To verify

“Dwarf/compact” and “medium-sized tree” are not quite the same claim. World Coffee Research classes Pacamara’s stature as “Dwarf/Compact”, while the Perfect Daily Grind interview above calls it medium-sized. These are probably compatible — WCR’s stature field is a two-way class, dwarf versus tall, and a compact-class tree can still be tall-ish for its class, which is exactly what you would expect from a dwarf Pacas crossed into the large-framed Maragogipe. But no source consulted here gives Pacamara a height in metres, so don’t repeat either word as a measurement.

The bigger problem: it does not breed true

World Coffee Research states it plainly: “Pacamara is not homogeneous; plants are not stable from one generation to the next”.

This is the part that matters most to a farmer and is least visible to a drinker. A grower who saves seed from a Pacamara block does not reliably get Pacamara back — offspring drift back toward the Pacas and Maragogipe parents, so a field planted from farm-saved seed ends up a mix of plant types with mixed bean sizes and mixed ripening. Keeping a Pacamara block true means buying certified seed rather than saving your own.

It is the same instability this wiki records for T5296 in the Sarchimor family — an incompletely fixed line released anyway because what it did well, it did very well.

What it actually wins

This is where Pacamara stops being a promising pedigree and becomes a documented champion. World Coffee Research says Pacamara “frequently dominates Cup of Excellence competitions” in El Salvador. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence’s own published results — primary records — back that up across three consecutive years.

2023 — Pacamara took first place outright.

	Rank	Farm	Producer	Score	Auction price
1	1A	Mileydi	Norelvia Angelica Elias de Diaz	91.82	$59.90/lb
2	1B	Mileydi	Norelvia Angelica Elias de Diaz	91.82	$58.60/lb
3	3A	San Luis de los Recuerdos	Roberto Samuel Ulloa Rusconi	90.05	$20.10/lb
4	3B	San Luis de los Recuerdos	Roberto Samuel Ulloa Rusconi	90.05	$19.00/lb
5	4	La Montaña	Francisco Alexander Ochoa Romero	89.89	$15.30/lb
6	5	La Arada	Cristobal Cartagena Santamaria	89.89	$9.15/lb

The top-scoring coffee in the entire 2023 El Salvador competition was a Pacamara, and it beat a Geisha into second place.⁶ As with the Cup of Excellence elsewhere, “1A” and “1B” are the same coffee split into two auction lots that sold separately.

2024 — Pacamara won the washed category and filled it.

	Category	Rank	Farm	Producer	Score	Auction price
1	Washed + Honey	1A	La Bendicion	Ismael Recinos Flores	92.00	$31.60/lb
2	Washed + Honey	1B	La Bendicion	Ismael Recinos Flores	92.00	$30.90/lb
3	Washed + Honey	3	Finca El Portezuelo	Rolando Melvi Huezo Escobar	90.09	$13.50/lb
4	Washed + Honey	4	La Montaña	Francisco Alexander Ochoa Romero	89.50	$13.20/lb
5	Washed + Honey	5	San Antonio de Alejandria	Jose Elias Escobar Romero	89.18	$10.30/lb
6	Washed + Honey	6	San Jose	Terra Unlimited	88.05	$10.60/lb
7	Natural	4	Don Octavio	Jose Octavio Umaña Valdivieso	89.34	$12.80/lb
8	Natural	5	Los Naranjos	David Velasquez Gomez	88.95	$10.00/lb
9	Experimental	3	Los Pirineos	Agricafe	90.45	$9.60/lb
10	Experimental	5	La Perla	Walter Vladimir Pineda Rodriguez	88.68	$9.50/lb
11	Experimental	8	Puerto Arturo	Karla Patricia Quiros	88.20	$10.10/lb
12	Experimental	9	El Manantial	Noe Aquiles Chacon Murcia	88.07	$9.00/lb

All rows from ACE — El Salvador 2024.⁷ Pacamara held the top score of the whole competition at 92.00, and took ranks 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the washed and honey category — five of the top six. It also appeared inside two blended lots: the Experimental winner Las Brumas (Juan Jose Ernesto Menendez Arguello) was 60% Bourbon / 40% Pacamara, scored 91.09 and sold at $55.00/lb, and Holanda placed 9th in Naturals with a 50/50 Pacamara-and-Anacafé blend.

2025 — first place in two of three categories.

	Category	Rank	Farm	Score	Auction price
1	Washed + Honey	1A	Santa Rosa	90.93	$41.20/lb
2	Washed + Honey	1B	Santa Rosa	90.93	$42.10/lb
3	Washed + Honey	2	Los Morales	90.57	$19.10/lb
4	Washed + Honey	6	Finca El Pezote	87.14	$15.60/lb
5	Washed + Honey	8	Finca El Durazno	87.02	$16.40/lb
6	Natural	4	El Angel (Pacamara Amarillo)	89.21	$16.50/lb
7	Natural	10	El Izotal	87.50	$20.10/lb
8	Natural	12	El Cerro	87.50	$15.30/lb
9	Experimental	1A	Las Duanas	90.18	$17.90/lb
10	Experimental	1B	Las Duanas	90.18	$17.90/lb
11	Experimental	2	Las Duanas	89.55	$15.20/lb
12	Experimental	3	Finca El Portezuelo	89.30	$18.30/lb
13	Experimental	5	Finca El Portezuelo	88.14	$15.20/lb

From ACE — El Salvador 2025.⁸ Pacamara took first in Washed + Honey and first in Experimental. The 2025 table also records a Pacamara Amarillo — a yellow-cherry form of the variety, which has its own note and its own four-lot competition record — placing 4th in Naturals.

The farm at the top of that 2025 table, Santa Rosa, is not a newcomer. It belongs to J. Raul Rivera, S.A. de C.V. in Alotepec-Metapán, the family farm founded by Jorge Raúl Rivera, and the same Pacamara block had already won El Salvador’s competition outright in 2014, 2017 and 2019 — always honey processed.

Three years, three separate national auctions, and Pacamara holds the top score in two of them and category wins in all three. That is a far stronger evidence base than exists for most varieties on this wiki, and it comes from the competition organiser’s own published results rather than from marketing copy.

Two honest caveats. The highest price in these auctions usually goes to a Geisha, not a Pacamara — El Salvador’s 2024 auction peaked at $122.00/lb for a natural Geisha from Los Morales, roughly four times what the 92-point Pacamara fetched. And these are national competitions in the one country where Pacamara is planted most heavily, so it is competing at home.

To verify

The flavour descriptions are trade prose, not data. Perfect Daily Grind describes complex intense aromas, medium-to-dense body, creamy texture and elegant acidity, ranging from chocolate and butterscotch to citrus, red berries and stone fruit; The Basic Barista reports that early washed lots were clean and savoury, “akin to jalapeño pepper jelly,” while naturals and anaerobic naturals show more sweetness; Femobook reports floral notes and chocolate sweetness.⁹¹⁰ None of these is cupping data. The only defensible numbers on this page are the Cup of Excellence scores above and World Coffee Research’s “Exceptional” quality rating.

Where it grows

World Coffee Research puts Pacamara primarily in El Salvador, and that is where the competition record sits. Secondary trade sources add plantings in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru, and place the Salvadoran concentration in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec and Alotepec-Metapán growing regions¹¹ — those regional details are single-sourced and should be treated as such.

Pacamara is a public variety. Nothing in the World Coffee Research entry indicates a protected cultivar or restricted planting rights, and it was produced by a national research institute for national use, which is the normal route to public status.

Why it matters

Pacamara is the clearest example in the catalogue of a deliberately bred variety that competes with the heirlooms on their own ground. Most of this wiki’s bred varieties were made for survival, not flavour — the Catimor and Sarchimor families traded cup quality for rust resistance, and Catimor traded away more than it got back. Pacamara went the other direction entirely: it has essentially no disease resistance, it yields low, it will not breed true, and it wins.

It also punctures a comfortable story. “Bred varieties cup flat, heirlooms cup well” is the shorthand most drinkers carry, and Pacamara — a 1950s-era institutional cross with a 92.00-point Cup of Excellence lot to its name — is the counter-example. The variable that actually predicts cup quality here is not whether a plant was bred, but whether it was bred for cup quality and grown high enough to express it.

Related

• El Salvador — the origin it was made in and is still grown in most heavily
• Instituto Salvadoreño de Investigaciones del Café — the Salvadoran state institute that bred it, now defunct
• Pacas — the dwarf Bourbon mutation that is the Salvadoran parent
• Pacas family — the Salvadoran growers the Pacas parent is named after, and the source of the fullest description of the plant
• Maragogipe — the giant-bean Typica mutation that is the Brazilian parent
• Maracaturra — the other big-bean cross, Maragogipe × Caturra; it has no catalogue entry of its own, and this Pacamara entry is where World Coffee Research records its Nicaraguan origin
• Bourbon · Typica — the two founding lineages Pacamara sits between
• Anacafe 14 — the Guatemalan variety bred from (Timor Hybrid × Caturra) × Pacamara
• Pacamara Amarillo — the yellow-cherry form, recorded on lot sheets in three countries and in no variety catalogue
• Jorge Raúl Rivera — the Chalatenango grower whose farm Santa Rosa has won the Salvadoran competition with this variety four times
• Geisha — the variety it shares an “Exceptional” quality rating with, and usually loses to on price
• Cup of Excellence · Alliance for Coffee Excellence — the competition and the body whose published results are cited above
• Cup of Excellence records by country — where the El Salvador auction sits against the rest
• World Coffee Research — keeper of the variety catalogue every agronomic figure here comes from
• Coffee leaf rust — the disease it has almost no defence against
• Catimor · Sarchimor — the bred families that made the opposite trade
• Cupping · Coffee scoring — how the scores above are produced
• Natural process · Honey process · Anaerobic fermentation — the processing categories the auction tables are split by

Official links

• Official site — World Coffee Research variety record: Pacamara
• Official site — World Coffee Research variety catalogue
• Official site — Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Cup of Excellence results archive

The breeding institute itself has no reachable official presence. ISIC was folded into El Salvador’s later coffee research bodies, and both procafe.com.sv and csc.gob.sv failed to load when (DNS failure and an expired certificate respectively). Treat the World Coffee Research record as the authoritative public entry for the variety.

Footnotes

1. World Coffee Research — Pacamara ↩

2. Perfect Daily Grind — Interview: What’s So Special About Pacamara? ↩

3. Roastopedia — Pacamara Coffee: Origin, Genetics & Cup Profile ↩

4. Monarch Coffee — The Majestic Pacamara ↩

5. Sweet Maria’s library — Exploring Distinctive Characteristics & Virtues of Coffee Varieties: The Bourbon & Pacamara Case (PDF) ↩

6. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Cup of Excellence El Salvador 2023 results ↩

7. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Cup of Excellence El Salvador 2024 results ↩

8. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Cup of Excellence El Salvador 2025 results ↩

9. The Basic Barista — What is Pacamara Coffee Bean? ↩

10. Femobook — Pacamara Coffee: Flavor Profile, Origin & Growing Regions ↩

11. Xliii Coffee — Pacamara Coffee: The superior result of 30 years of breeding innovation ↩