China 'good client' now of Salvadoran special coffee sellers

SAN SALVADOR - Mauricio Samour watched as freshly-roasted mountain-grown coffee beans cascaded onto a tray for cooling. Each bean had the same brown luster, he pointed out - a sign of quality and care in the processing.

Nestled in the El Balsamo mountain range in western El Salvador, Samour's coffee plantation, called Las Tinieblas (The Dusk), exports gourmet coffee to German, British and US markets.

Samour decided seven years ago to dedicate his 180-hectare property in the central department of La Libertad solely to growing and processing premium coffee beans, using a painstaking process. Naturally drying the beans alone can take up to 20 days.