Café Elba

06/07/2026

12/27/2025

😊🎄❤️

Last-minute realization that you have guests coming with dietary restrictions? No need to panic! All of our counter treats are baked in-house, using all-natural, organic and gluten-free ingredients! We will be happy to guide you through the options.
Vous venez d’apprendre à la dernière minute que certains de vos invités ont des restrictions alimentaires ? Pas de panique ! Toutes nos pâtisseries sont préparées sur place à partir d’ingrédients naturels, biologiques et sans gluten. Nous serons ravis de vous aider à faire votre choix !

02/09/2025

Elba is going to El Salvador next week to visit family and friends and enjoy her well deserved vacation. 🌞 🌊🌴Of course, she’s also bringing the money that was donated by our trusty customers throughout the months to send to the school we’re helping, as well as doing her usual rounds dispensing money directly to families that pick coffee. ✊🙌

The price of raw coffee beans has never been higher in history! And this will unfortunately necessitate a significant price increase on our end. 😓. We would be happy about the price increase if we knew that the extra money was going towards higher wages for the tens of thousands of coffee pickers throughout Central America. So let’s find out if that’s the case. Elba will speak to coffee pickers and she'll ask them if they are seeing ANY increase in wages. We’ll report back on how much they’re getting paid in 2025. But don’t hold your breath. I think we all know the results beforehand.

01/23/2025

Did you know that today is the 93rd anniversary of La Matanza in El Salvador? Between January and February 1932, indigeneity in El Salvador would be dealt a near fatal blow, as tens of thousands of Nahua Pipil campesinos would be slaughtered by the brutal military regime of ”El Brujo” General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez.

But why would a coffee company bring this up on a social media post? What does this have to do with coffee? Well, what precipitated the massacre was a mass uprising of impoverished coffee pickers! Yes indeed, it was the coffee grower’s worst nightmare. A two or three day insurrection, whereby severely exploited and impoverished indigenous coffee pickers revolted and took control of a few towns and killed some landowners.

Yes, the very descendants of the coffee pickers we try to help today. Our descendants. This is a history not taught in Salvadoran classrooms, but it is a story well known by anyone over the age of 40 or 50 … a sort of dark oral-history passed on amongst the peasantry. The government purged most state and local records of the event. But the story lives on. My mom (Elba) knows the story. And I will also pass the story on to the next generation. In fact, just last year I spoke to an elder who was born just years after the event, who grew up hearing stories from his father who survived it. The memory is still fresh in those who suffered the most.

But at least we’ve come a long way and … wait a minute… … ok, so not much has really changed. So much for the story of a rising tide lifting all boats. The coffee pickers still live in abject poverty, not much better than they did in those days. … ok I’ve got to try to finish this off on a positive note… Here it goes; “Yay ‘relationship coffee’! Yay capitalism! ........

Rest in Peace to all my First Nation folks who lost their lives.

Special R.I.P. to Juan Pablo Wainwright, Modesto Ramirez, Miguel Marmol, Manuel Mojica, Luis Felipe Recinos, Jose Luis Barrientos, Francisco ‘Chico’ Sanchez, Jose Feliciano Ama, and of course, Augustin ‘El Negro’ Farabundo Marti. Lu lucha sigue!

Old Photo Credit: Historia de El Salvador FB page

10/05/2024

McGill University

01/20/2024

Happy Belated New Years Everyone! Elba is back in town from El Salvador and roasting again, so please make sure to place your online orders!

Here are a few pictures of Elba buying Christmas gifts for every child in the Palo de Campana school, high up in the remote regions of the Santa Ana volcano.

Although we don’t post often to social media, the goal is always the same. It will never change. This business is all about helping the coffee pickers in any way we can. The mission is simple. Help out coffee pickers by selling great Central American coffee. So if ever you wonder what we’re up to, it’s a good bet that we’re doing just that.

Thank you for your continued support and here’s to a great 2024!

11/21/2023

Hello everyone, don’t forget to place online orders in the next few days! We have one last delivery run before our trip.

Elba and Mike will be traveling to El Salvador for the whole month of December. So for the first time in many years, we’ll have to pause business operations for the holiday season. But we’ll be back in town roasting again in early January. So if you need Elba’s coffee for the holidays, please place your orders soon!

While we’re away, you can visit Que de Bonne Chose in Hudson, QC, as they’ll be fully stocked with our coffee. You can also find some of our coffee at Singh’s Arcade in Ste Anne de Bellevue!