Exceptional & Rare 2026
Bernardina & Geisha · Café Pacas, El Salvador · 2 × 125g
Two naturals from one family: the variety that won El Salvador's Cup of Excellence this year, and a Geisha grown from five seeds.
Filter coffees, both — brew them side by side, and buy whole bean if you can.
Once a year we put two coffees in a box that we'd never put on the bar. Not because they're difficult — because there isn't enough of them. This year there are one hundred boxes, one roast, and pre-orders close on Sunday 13 December.
Both come from the Pacas family, five generations of coffee growers in Santa Ana, El Salvador, and from the small part of their harvest they call Incunables, after the earliest printed books: the lots too rare to blend. The Bernardina is a variety that didn't exist until 2012, when the manager of Finca Los Bellotos noticed a few trees with unusually sweet cherries and picked them separately; a DNA test matched nothing known, and the family named it after him. This year a Bernardina took first place outright at El Salvador's Cup of Excellence. This lot is from the original trees. The Geisha began as five seeds from a friend of the family, four of which grew; the trees they planted at Finca La Providencia in 2019 are what's in the second tin.
Two 125g tins, both naturals dried slowly in the shade, roasted light by Bailies in Belfast, in the black and copper box we've used since 2023. The roast is on Monday 14 December and the boxes go out on Thursday 17 December — in time for Christmas, and as fresh as a coffee can be on the day. Pre-order now; when the hundred are spoken for, that's the year.
Delivery
- Collection from our Dublin cafés — free
- Orders over €35 to an all-Ireland address — free
- Orders of €35 or less to an all-Ireland address — €8.50
- Orders to mainland UK — €15.50
More on shipping and processing times.
Exceptional & Rare 2026
- Edition100 boxes
- Pre-order closesSunday 13 December
- RoastedMonday 14 December
- DispatchedThursday 17 December
Two cups, side by side.
BERNARDINA — dried blackcurrant on the nose; mango, green apple and jasmine in the cup. Medium acidity, medium-full body. The bigger of the two.
GEISHA — panettone on the nose; orange zest, lychee and elderflower. Medium acidity, medium body. Lighter, more floral, and the one to drink first.
Brew them one after the other from the same kettle. The point of the box is the comparison: one family, one process, and two varieties that are closer cousins than they taste — the Bernardina is mostly Geisha by descent.
Bernardina.
FINCA LOS BELLOTOS · COATEPEQUE, SANTA ANA · NATURAL
1,400 to 1,750 metres on the western slopes of Cerro Verde. In 2012 the farm manager, Ruperto Bernardino Merche, noticed a group of trees whose cherries tasted sweeter than the rest and asked to harvest them on their own. The cup was unlike anything else on the farm; DNA analysis found no match in any known variety — about seventy per cent Geisha, the rest traced to Agaro in Ethiopia, and how it reached El Salvador is still unknown. Café Pacas named it Bernardina, after him, and it is still grown nowhere else. On its first Cup of Excellence entry, in 2019, it placed third; in 2026 a Bernardina took first place outright. This lot is from the original trees.
Geisha.
FINCA LA PROVIDENCIA · CHALCHUAPA, SANTA ANA · NATURAL
1,600 metres, sandy loam, run by Carlos and Yanira Mendoza, father and daughter. Geisha seed was almost impossible to find when the Pacas family wanted it; a friend gave them five seeds, and four grew. Everything the family now grows came from those four trees, including the hectare and a half planted at La Providencia in 2019. Panettone on the nose, then the citrus and the florals the variety is known for, at a lighter weight than the Bernardina.
More details.
Edition One hundred boxes · pre-orders close Sunday 13 December · one roast, Monday 14 December · dispatched Thursday 17 December
Box 2 × 125g · black and copper gift box · a card for each coffee · handwritten note on request
Bernardina — Finca Los Bellotos, Coatepeque, Santa Ana · Café Pacas, manager Ruperto Bernardino Merche · 1,400–1,750 masl · Bernardina (grown only by Café Pacas, identified 2012; Cup of Excellence El Salvador 1st place 2026, 3rd 2019) · Natural, shaded raised beds, 18–21 days
Geisha — Finca La Providencia, Chalchuapa, Santa Ana · Café Pacas, Carlos and Yanira Mendoza · 1,600 masl · Geisha · Natural, shaded raised beds, 18–21 days
Roast Light
We taste Bernardina — mango, green apple and jasmine · Geisha — orange zest, lychee and elderflower
Because that is all there is. One hundred boxes means two hundred tins, and a tin keeps a light roast better than a bag over the days between roasting and Christmas morning.
The Geisha. It's the lighter of the two; the Bernardina after it will taste bigger, which is the right way round.
Not this year. The box is the product, and the two were chosen to be tasted together. If there's real demand we'll ask Bailies about a second roast, but nothing is promised.
The box, yes. The coffees change every year. 2024 was a Pacas La Esperanza with an Ethiopian from Daye Bensa; this is the first year both tins are from one family.
There is one roast, on Monday 14 December, and every box goes out on Thursday 17 December — so it arrives in the week before Christmas, days off the roaster. For collection from any of our nine Dublin cafés, order by Tuesday 22 December.
Yes, but the whole order is held and sent together on Thursday 17 December. If you want something sooner — Sú Nollag to drink now, say — place it as a separate order. Delivery is free over €35, and the box clears that on its own.
How they're made.
NATURAL, IN THE SHADE. Both lots are dried whole, in the cherry, on raised beds under shade — not in the sun. The shade stretches the drying to eighteen to twenty-one days, and the slower it goes the more sugar the bean takes on and the more stable it is afterwards. Every delivery to the mill is checked for ripeness first; anything under ninety-seven per cent ripe is turned away. Paulino Gutiérrez and María Mártir Argueta watch the beds every day until the coffee reaches 11.5 per cent moisture.
Roasted light by Bailies in Belfast, on profiles Pei and Eilís settled after two rounds of samples. Roast date on each tin.
Made for giving.
The box is the gift: two tins, a card for each coffee with the farm, the people and the notes, and a handwritten message if you add one at checkout — on any order, not just the gifts. Every box is roasted on 14 December and goes out on 17 December, so it lands the week before Christmas at its freshest.
For someone who already has the grinder and the Chemex, this is the coffee to give them.