Video: Inside the Operations of Aida Batlle and J. Hill in El Salvador

It was about this time last year when a small film crew decided to take a Western tour of some of the country’s leading roasters just to find out what the heck is all the fuss about specialty coffee?

Well, it seems they learned a thing or two and decided to dig deeper. For its latest video, The Pancake Epidemic, a division of Los Angeles “experiential marketing” firm StreetVirus, decided to learn more about coffee at the source, visiting renowned fifth-generation Salvadoran producer Aida Batlle, who showed the crew around the operations at the Salvadoran milling, production and exporting company J. Hill.

(related: Renowned Salvadoran Producer Aida Batlle Recognized as Super Good)

While the video may not provide much new for those already familiar with basics of coffee farming and processing, it provides an excellent overview of a producer operating at the highest level. One of the video’s highlights is an exploration of the mill’s reuses of pulp waste. Not only does it employ the common method of composting through worm farms to fertilize new plants, J. Hill has also been working on an experimental machine for the past 15 years that the group hopes will convert burned pulp emissions into enough fuel to power the wet mill.

You may also notice a couple mentions of Stumptown Coffee Roasters, with which the Pancake Epidemic has an ongoing relationship through a private Los Angeles cafe developed last year. Experiential marketing, man.

(related: An Amazing Coffee Origin Trip to Tanna Island, Vanuatu (Video)