During the harvest of 2011 we ended up with coffees from two different areas of Guatemala - Huehuetenango and Antigua. I’ve often thought that if we could buy coffee from only one country, Guatemala would be an excellent choice because it offers so many various flavor profiles. But don’t worry - we will keep focusing on having a diverse representation of all the coffee growing regions. Like last year, we will continue to buy from La Bolsa in Huehuetenango, and as harvest just started a few weeks ago, we will soon be starting to see samples to taste and review in our lab at the roastery. When I visited La Bolsa earlier this month, we walked all over the farm, and we will start a project with a lot they call Ventana Grande - the big window. La Bolsa got it’s name from being surrounded by mountains, so that the farm itself is literally in a bag. At the highest elevated part of the farm, the mountain forms a window that you can walk through, and on the other side the Ventana Grande lot. After picking, we will try a special preparation of the Ventana Grande where we will focus in particular on drying of the wet parchment. After La Bolsa I continued to visit two of their neighbors where we have other scintillating plans for special preparations, but more about that another time. A couple of more interesting projects are lining up both in Huehuetenango and near lake Atitlan, but we will let that be a pleasant surprise when the coffees arrives.
From Antigua we have established and will continue our relationships with Pulcal, Retana and San Juan and I spent the days visiting the farms and cupping coffee at our exporter’s office. Here, harvest was in full swing, and some of the best coffees I cupped continued to be from these farms. Different from the two other farms which have been well run for generations, San Juan is a special project run by Luis Pedro Zelaya Zamora where he is leasing the land and managing the farm. The amount of labor he puts in to refining the agricultural practices at this farm is astonishing - from incorporation of organic matter to the soil to management of shade trees and harvesting. Expect nothing but exceptional coffees from these Antigua farms this year.
-Mie