Winner of the 2025 El Salvador Cup of Excellence — 1st Place.

SANTA ROSA’s story began in 1979, when brothers Jorge Raul and Jose Roberto Rivera acquired land in Chalatenango. It was a difficult time for El Salvador, and an unforgiving moment for coffee. The original vision was paused, and the land was planted with pine trees instead. The forest grew slowly, alongside patience.

In 2003, with the arrival of Cup of Excellence in El Salvador, the Rivera brothers returned to their original idea — building a farm without compromise. SANTA ROSA was planted from a clean slate, focusing on Pacamara and selecting plants with strong Maragogype expression. Large areas of forest were preserved to provide shade, moisture, and balance. In Chalatenango’s hot, dry climate, this is necessity rather than style.

Jorge Raul Rivera immersed himself fully in coffee, farming, researching, and teaching cultivation and processing at the University of El Salvador. As SANTA ROSA matured, so did the region itself, now recognised as one of the country’s most promising origins.

After years of consistent work, SANTA ROSA’s Pacamara reached the highest level of recognition at the Cup of Excellence — a measured outcome of patience and long-term vision. This achievement was not a one-off: subsequent harvests continued to place Santa Rosa among Cup of Excellence winners, and this year, we have the chance to celebrate Santa Rosa Pacamara taking first place once again.

CUP OF EXCELLENCE is the world’s most respected international competition for coffee quality, organised by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence. For producers, participation represents the highest level of global recognition.

The competition is built on a rigorous, blind tasting system, with coffees advancing through multiple international judging rounds. The finalists are presented at auction, where winning lots can achieve prices many times higher than standard market levels. Beyond prestige, Cup of Excellence offers something more tangible: real economic opportunity and the beginning of long-term partnerships between producers and buyers.