The Zona Alta is a mountainous region on the northern border of El Salvador. The growing conditions here are perfect for producing excellent coffee. The coffee trees thrive in the cool, mountain air and the rich, volcanic soils. Mature shade trees spread their canopies high above the coffee providing habitat for songbirds and protection for the coffee trees below.

For the best flavor, the farmers wait (and wait and wait) to harvest until the coffee cherry is a fully-mature, wine-red color. The coffee is hand-picked by the farmers and their families.

The coffee is then pulped, washed, and dried all within the community. It is then milled and hand-sorted to give you a perfect cup of coffee in every cup. This entire process takes place within the community of Los Planes where the coffee is grown. The work is done by the farmers and their families, providing jobs that previously didn’t exist.

We got to know the people of Los Planes (the small village in the Zona Alta region) as Peace Corps Volunteers. For two and a half years we lived and worked with the people of Los Planes. Because of the excellent quality of their coffee we realized that they had the opportunity to develop a gourmet market for their beans. From that idea Zona Alta Coffee was born.

Now, after six years, Zona Alta has become firmly established as a premier gourmet coffee providing beans to the finest roasters on the West Coast, Mariposa Coffee Company, Thanksgiving Coffee, Humboldt Bay Coffee, and Royal Coffee to name a few.

Pictured below left are the coffee farmers of Zona Alta Coffee. We work with over fifty small farmers and their families. Their plots range from 1/2 acre to 4 acres. With such small holdings, they are unable to earn much individually. But working together they can combine their talents and resources to bring this wonderful coffee to market and at a price that will support them. We have helped educate them on the demands of the gourmet market and how to pick and process the coffee to provide you with a consistently delicious cup of gourmet coffee every time.

Although countries such as Brazil and Colombia are almost synonymous with the word coffee, this ubiquitous drink actually traces its origins back to the rainforests of Ethiopia. The Ethiopians and later the Arabs came to love this potent drink and carefully guarded their trees and seed from outsiders. European travelers in the Mid-East enjoyed the dark brew and carried the bean and a taste for coffee back to the continent. Over a period of time various adventurers risked life and limb to smuggle viable seed and seedlings out of the Arab world. Due to the vigorous imperialism of the European nations, coffee plantations sprung up throughout the Tropics, from India and Indonesia to Brazil, Central America and Hawaii, then finally back to its home in Africa in the colonies of Kenya and Tanzania.

Coffee is the world's most popular drink and is the second most traded commodity in the world. Coffee has given jobs to millions of workers, created fabulous wealth and poverty, influenced and controlled governments, alternately destroyed or protected the environment (depending on production methods), and stimulated oppression and violent revolutions. It is hard to believe that all that is contained in the 8-oz of coffee steaming away on your desk.