Secadero de Pasarón
Pasarón de la Vera, La Vera
PaprikaUnder study
- Hectares
- 4.5
- Pepper plants
- 52,000
- Variety
- Jaranda and Bola
- Since
- 1955
- Smoking
- 15 days
- Last autumn
- 1,600
- kg of paprika
Who runs it
Celestino Tovar is seventy-one and owns a two-floor drying house his father built in 1955. Every autumn he lights the fire downstairs and smokes the peppers upstairs for two weeks. He says this will be his last autumn tending the fire.
What we would do
If it joins @seis, his niece Marisa would run it. She teaches in Plasencia and has spent ten autumns helping him. We would put temperature probes on the upper floor so nobody has to sleep next to the fire. The fire would still burn wood.
What it gives now
Every autumn around 1,600 kilos of paprika leave here with the Pimentón de la Vera PDO. It is ground in a stone mill and tinned the same day. The sweet stays in the district and the hot goes to Madrid.
Latest
October 2026
- 20Oct
Red peppers carried up to the drying floor
+9,800 kg
- 3Oct
Hand picking in the lower field
+5,200 kg
September 2026
- 8Sept
Survey of the drying house with an engineer from Plasencia
−€1,400.00
July 2026
- 15Jul
Watering from the mountain stream
−2,100 m³
May 2026
- 21May
Pepper seedlings for both fields
−€3,900.00
February 2026
- 12Feb
Paprika bought for the shops
+420 kg
The map
Tap a plot to see its details.
- Peppers3.8 ha
- Banks and boundaries0.5 ha
- Water0.1 ha
- Workshop0.05 ha
- Buildings0.05 ha
- Total4.5 ha
What comes next
2026Under way€4,200
Review the figures and the drying house
We will know if the drying house can last twenty more autumns.
2027Planned€3,800
Temperature probes on the upper floor
The phone warns if the fire runs hot or low.
2027Planned€26,000
A new roof for the drying house
No rain gets onto the pepper floor.
2028Planned€14,000
Stone mill restored
It grinds slowly and does not heat the paprika.
From this farm
Next farm
Dehesa El Rincón