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<\/p>\n[A]t first glance, the small white adobe building could just be any old residence. Above the entryway, the word \u201cCAF\u00c9\u201d is small and unimposing, while in curved letters, the name \u201cDespistados\u201d is almost covered with the picturesque vines that creep just below the wavy tin roof. On the ironwork on the wooden door is a small sign with a drawing of a coffee cup that says abierto\u2014\u201copen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despistados is a caf\u00e9 located in La Palma, El Salvador, a small artsy town just a few minutes\u2019 drive from the Honduran border. Inside, it is warm and cozy, with fewer than 10 tables, plus a small lounge in the back with a couch, a guitar, and a large chalk mural on a black wall where customers can sign their names and write messages. Most of the furniture is made of wood, while the floors are made of local stone.<\/p>\n
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22-two-year-old owner Alejandro Garc\u00eda Aguill\u00f3n wants the one-and-a-half-year-old caf\u00e9 to use local and regional elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a Latin American concept,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
As places modernize, they often take down adobe houses and replace them with cement ones, so Aguill\u00f3n wanted to make sure the caf\u00e9 was in a traditional adobe structure. He found the perfect location in an abandoned house.<\/p>\n
The caf\u00e9 also pays homage to Latin American cultural figures. A small cartoon drawing of Frida Kahlo hangs framed on the wall, and a large wood carving of the word \u201cMACONDO\u201d hangs in the kitchen area. (Macondo is the fictional town in Colombian author\u2019s Gabriel Garcia Marquez\u2019s classic, One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Aguill\u00f3n credits the opening of Despistados to a program called Generaciones<\/em>, which helps young people in the Trifinio region, encompassing parts of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, learn about the coffee industry. Thanks to climate change and low coffee prices, many young people do not want to stay in the coffee industry, even though it historically plays an important part of both the region\u2019s economy and culture. The Generaciones<\/em> program, part of the Hans R. Neumann Stiftung Foundation\u2019s work on coffee and climate change, aims to keep young people in the area and in coffee.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that these young people will become growers: the program offers training in other areas of the coffee industry, from cupping and machine repair to distribution and, in the case of Aguill\u00f3n, opening a small coffee business.<\/p>\n \u201cThe program taught me to believe in my capabilities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Most of the participants in Generaciones<\/em> come from families involved in the coffee industry; often, they are the children of growers. Aguill\u00f3n was an outlier; he was not involved in coffee before beginning the program. In fact, before participating in Generaciones<\/em>, he had thought about opening an extreme sports center.<\/p>\n In the Generaciones<\/em> program, Aguill\u00f3n learned leadership and entrepreneurial skills, as well as specifics about the business of coffee. As part of the program, Aguill\u00f3n even had the opportunity to visit Paraguay to share his experiences with the youth there. He also went to Italy last year for a Lavazza conference.<\/p>\n After completing the program, Aguill\u00f3n won seed money to start the caf\u00e9 from CONAMYPE, El Salvador\u2019s National Commission of Small and Micro Business. They gave him $3,000, which he used to renovate the space and buy equipment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started with a small machine that you\u2019d use at home\u201d he says, referring to a now-defunct drip coffee maker that would look more suitable on a kitchen counter. \u201cIt died, but it helped us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n As the business grew, he was able to invest in a Nuova Simonelli espresso maker.<\/p>\n The caf\u00e9 now boasts a full coffee menu, with all the staples like espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes, using a mix of beans: some local, such as the Pacamara variety, and some imported from Brazil. They also offer licuados de frutas<\/em> (fruit smoothies) and frozen coffee drinks. And because El Salvador uses the United States dollar as its currency, the prices on the menu are strikingly low to a tourist\u2019s eye: an espresso will set you back $0.75, while the most expensive coffee drink, a mocha, is $1.25. A panini sandwich goes for $2.00.<\/p>\n Along with sandwiches, wraps, and nachos, Despistados offers homemade pastries like apple pie, cheesecake, and tres leches<\/em> cake, baked by Aguill\u00f3n\u2019s girlfriend and collaborator, Maria Feliciana Figueroa.<\/p>\n Figueroa is also responsible for much of the caf\u00e9\u2019s design aesthetic, which includes wooden pallets used for benches, stool tops carved to look like coffee beans, pillows and cushions made out of repurposed coffee sacks, and art and quotes lining the adobe walls. She also creates bracelets and earrings out of coffee beans and beads, which they sell at the caf\u00e9 as well.<\/p>\n Now that Despistados is established and doing well, Aguill\u00f3n is focused on expansion. He recently won seed money to start a mobile coffee business, which is now in progress. And looking forward, he hopes to open more caf\u00e9s in small towns using parts of each place\u2019s unique local culture.<\/p>\n While the familiar definition of despistados<\/em> translates to \u201cclueless\u201d or \u201cdistracted,\u201d Aguill\u00f3n sees it as a word for those who are a little lost or unique. He says he chose the name to represent being off the beaten path, or a little different.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing different is a quality of ours,\u201d says Aguill\u00f3n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despistados is a caf\u00e9 located in La Palma, El Salvador, a small artsy town just a few minutes\u2019 drive from the Honduran border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":22540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[24,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/MenuFrida.gif\")
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