This coffee was produced by four smallholder coffee producers who are members of the El Sendero Cooperative, located in the municipality and town of Concepción Huista, in Guatemala’s state of Huehuetenango.

The farms that contributed to this lot are very small – on average just 3 hectares in size – and are located between 1600-2000m above sea level, in the steep, rugged hills that surround Concepción. Farmers in the region benefit from abundant freshwater, thanks to the local Rio Azul (Blue River) and its tributaries. All coffee in town is grown under the shade of Chalum trees (a local variety of Inga) and Gravillea, though the amount of shade needs to be managed carefully every year due to HueHue’s humid, temperate climate. Coffee is also inter cropped with other fruit trees like avocados, lemons, oranges, and peaches.

The El Sendero Cooperative provides training sessions to all its members at the beginning of every harvest, to remind them of the best practices to follow during the picking and processing of their coffee. This is important Pablo explained, because every member processes their own cherry using their own infrastructure that they have built on their farms. While the bigger farms have set up microbeneficios (small wet mills) with raised beds onsite, the smaller producers rely on tiny tanks and thick, plastic tarps to wash and dry their coffee.

Coffee is pre-fermented in sacks for up to 24 hours early in the harvest, yet it can be as short as 12 hours once the weather begins to warm up in March.

Cherries are then washed and depulped, and left to ferment overnight (or up to 12 hours). The following day, this wet parchment is washed again using fresh water from the nearby Río Azul, and laid to dry on raised beds, concrete patio, or a thick, plastic tarp placed on gravel.

Once coffee is dry, it is picked up by the El Sendero Cooperative, where lots are stored at their warehouse and separated based on quality at their cupping lab. 

Credit : Melbourne Coffee Merchants