Hi. I'm John. John Curry. For a very long time, I was a guy with a job in a big company. My wife Lula and I were happy raising our kids and living our lives. The kids grew up. Now I'm a Salvadoreño coffee grower and my Lula is a transplanted urbanite. She wanted a big change; she was homesick for the old country; she was ready for something new. Yak, yak, yak, blah, blah, blah. She left me to my own devices for a week in Central America. I found a raggedy abandoned coffee farm. I asked Lula to come take a look. She did. She liked it. We bought it. We went to work. Over the past few years, we've been creating the physical plant and developing the knowledge base upon which to build her a new path.
Located in the heart of El Salvador's coffee country, Finca Casacurry™ is our mountain home and refuge. Lula is from El Salvador, and hoped to one day be able to live there again. Fine with me, if we could do something exceptional. This
finca is that. When we first set foot on the place, it was dilapidated and over grown; not much to look at. Off on the horizon, however, we could see hints of a few volcanoes, and thought that if the land were cleaned, the view might be pretty good. The first picture, above, is us with our friend Paco walking through the wilderness together for the very first time. Take a very close look at the second picture, to the right. See a hint of a distant volcano top center? So did we. For us, it was compelling. We both could see so clearly what might be. We bought it, we cleaned it, we planted it, we populated it, and this place has ultimately proven to be transformational to us and to everyone who sets foot on it.
From 2002 'til now, we've cleared land, planted acres of grass, dozens of palm trees, dozens more of fruit trees, hundreds of flowers, and thousands of coffee plants. See the third picture, to the left? In El Salvador, we don't lay down sod. We don't have any. We buy a few strips of grass and let them fill in. Then we cut our own strips out and populate a new area. This is repeated over and over and over again. It's cheap and effective in a place where it's not really feasible to buy things. We've also built an infrastructure. We've installed electric poles and run lines up the road to our place. Within the property itself, we've buried three hundred meters of underground electric. We've installed a sprinkler system over an area of grass about three football fields in size. That's our lawn!! We've built a
glorietta (think bandstand with a wrought iron dome) and smuggled flowering porcelana from Hawaii to cover it in beauty. We've hired a property manager, Oto, and built a home for him and his family. We've put up two guest
cabañas, and put down three hundred meters of cobblestone road. We have resuscitated a defunct coffee
finca, and built a beautiful park and a unique destination around it. We're more than a little amazed at what we've done. We're not done quite yet...
Ever think about what underlies your cup of coffee? There is an ongoing learning process behind Café Casacurry. From the ground up, here is some of it: what kinds of plants are best suited for the region and elevation? How best to care for them given soil type and climate? How best to harvest the beans? How best to process them? How should they then be stored? What pre-roast preparation need be done? How can combinations of roasting equipment and roasting profiles be refined to maximize the nuances inherent to the variety? Learn what you can, then circle back to the beginning to apply and deepen the knowledge: aspire to achieve consistent, stable excellence.
