After spending a few days at a coffee finca on Ruta de Las Flores, we made it to Santa Ana. The city was once an important center during the coffee boom of the early 20th century. The central square with its imposing neo-Gothic cathedral, theatre, and city hall looked very European and boasted of the coffee trade wealth that once flowed through the city.
Outside the central square, however, there were not a lot of things to do. For the most part, we found Santa Ana to be a gritty Central American city with a lot of ramshackle and crumbling buildings. To make things worse, our hostel was in the red-light district, and the area was dodgy, especially after dark. On our first night in town, we tried to walk to a local pupuseria and immediately got lost. The dark streets were empty, and the neighborhood looked menacing. All those reports of gangs and robberies that we read about before visiting El Salvador could have been happening here, and we were certainly rethinking our choice of not having dinner at our hostel. The help came from where we expected it least. Local prostitutes who were lurking nearby came to our rescue and gave us directions to the place we were searching for. Who could have thought that we would use this blog to thank Salvadoran sex workers? But this is how it goes. Thank you, ladies!
We selected Santa Ana as a base for exploring the nearby Santa Ana volcano and Lake Coatepeque. Although we treated Santa Ana as a place to sleep before and after the volcano hike, we managed to have an adventure in the city, too. Our visit to J. Hill Coffee Company was a spectacular disaster, but something you can write about in a travel blog.
J. Hill Coffee Company is owned by the descendants of James Hill, an Englishman who arrived in El Salvador at the end of the 19th century and became the country’s coffee king. Before our trip, I read Coffeeland, a 2020 non-fiction book by Augustine Sedgewick, describing the history of coffee in El Salvador and Mr. Hill’s journey in establishing his Las Tres Puertas outside Santa Ana and transforming the coffee industry. Hill’s oppression and exploitation of the local population in his pursuit of building a coffee empire were the central theme of the book, and we initially had uneasy feelings about visiting the estate. Did we really want to visit a company whose founder unleashed so much suffering on the local population through inhumane and ruthless business practices? Yet, we were just a few miles from the place I had spent so much time reading about, so we decided to stop by. Many coffee companies offer tours, and we hoped J. Hill Coffee Company did as well.
When we arrived at the estate in the morning, the front gate was closed. There was no booth to buy admission tickets, no reception, nothing. We knocked on the door, and a security guard with a military-style rifle came out. He looked at us with suspicion and asked why we were there. We wanted to take a tour, but he responded that the business wouldn't open until 1 p.m. He didn't mention the non-existence of coffee tours (or any tours, for that matter) and was visibly annoyed by our presence.
After spending a couple of hours in the city, we returned in the afternoon, but the front gate was still closed. A few tired workers were sitting outside waiting for their bus back home. They all looked so exhausted and worn out that I thought that labor practices at this company might not have changed much since James Hill was in charge. We knocked on the door again, and the same guard answered. He acted as if he had never seen us before and once again asked us who we were. We repeated our request to tour the facility, but this time he responded that no people were allowed inside unless they were workers or coffee buyers.
“Sure! We’ll buy coffee at the end of the visit!” I said, trying to say anything that would get us inside.
The security guard waved us in but pointed his rifle at our camera and told Julia to put it in the backpack. Pictures weren't allowed. He told us that we could buy coffee from the front office and asked us to follow him. As he hurriedly escorted us, we started to suspect that we were not going to tour the facility.
At the front office, I went inside, while Julia remained with the security guard by the door. The guard barked something to the woman who was in charge, and she, without looking up or stopping her work, greeted me with:
“How many kilograms do you want to buy?”
“Kilograms?”
I looked around and finally realized that this wasn't a gift shop selling small pouches of coffee to satisfied tourists after a tour, but a wholesaler, selling coffee in bulk.
“Yes, kilograms,” she said, clearly irritated.
I could hear Julia nervously whispering outside, begging me not to buy a 50-kilogram coffee bag just to appease this office manager.
“Maybe one pound?” I mumbled.
The woman stopped shuffling papers, raised her head, and exhaled with visible annoyance. I was wasting her time.
They did have small bags for sale, although the business model wasn't built to allow random strangers to barge in to buy a pound of coffee.
While I was selecting what coffee to buy, Julia wasn't giving up on exploring the premises. But the armed guard was right next to her, preventing any movement. Once I paid, he walked us out and loudly slammed the door. The visit was over, and not what we had hoped for.
The exhausted workers were still waiting for their transportation and were looking at us with tired indifference. We snapped a few pictures next to the closed entrance gate, jumped in the car, and drove off.
The visit left a bitter taste in our mouths. That bitter taste became even more real when we returned home and brewed a cup of coffee using beans bought at J. Hill. Instead of promised notes of chocolate and cherries, the coffee was bitter, and we could not even finish a cup. There was nothing wrong with it, and we gave it away to our friends who liked this coffee. But for us, the taste was probably tainted by our disappointing visit.
In all fairness, it was our fault that the visit went how it went. Had we done any research, we would've learned that there were no organized tours at J. Hill and that by showing up and requesting a tour of the business that was otherwise closed to visitors, we were simply disrupting the business operations of this coffee company. So, no hard feelings.
To those who want to visit a coffee estate in El Salvador, we recommend El Carmen near Ataco de la Concepcion on Ruta de Las Flores. They do organize coffee tours, and their guided tours are top-notch!
