About This Coffee
Flor de Maíz is a local cooperative that serves members in Villa Hortensia Antigua. Founded in 2002, ECA Flor de Maíz brought together families in the community to apply for financial support from Programa de Créditos del Fondo de Tierras to buy land for farming and found their cooperative. Most of the members of ECA Flor de Maíz and their communities of ethnically Maya Ixil.
Together, the cooperative has built a range of infrastructure that supports their community’s social and economic needs. They built a collection center for parchment coffee where members can bring dried parchment to a central location for storage and transport. They also build a primary school for their children and safe communal housing for members and their families.
Cultivation
Together, members of Flor de Maiz FECCEG have created a protected forest area that protects and improves the community’s watershed.
In addition to coffee, most members also cultivate corn, beans, fruits and root vegetables for their families.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Members selectively handpick cherry and process it on their farms. They float cherry to remove any underripes and then pulp it on manual hand pulpers. About 10% of members have electric pulpers.
Once pulped, they ferment coffee in concrete tanks or in plastic barrels for approximately 24 hours. Following fermentation, they wash parchment in clean water and lay it on concrete patios to sundry. Producers rake parchment frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 6 days for parchment to dry. Once dry, they bag parchment and deliver it to the cooperative’s central dry warehouse.
Coffee in Guatemala
Guatemala boasts a variety of growing regions and conditions that produce spectacular coffees. Today, the country is revered as a producer of some of the most flavorful and nuanced cups worldwide. We are proud to work with several exceptional in-country partners to bring these coffees to market.
The Guatemalan coffee industry experienced a major setback with the 2010 appearance of Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) in Latin America. The epidemic peaked in severity in 2012, and though CLR continues to affect some farms, Guatemala continues to produce high-quality, record-breaking coffees. In 2017, new and varied processing methods pushed prices at the Guatemalan Cup of Excellence contest to record highs.
The quality of coffee being produced in Guatemala is increasing, overall, due to the diversity of the industry’s producers. There are more and more small holder farmers producing exceptional coffee at high altitudes. Cooperatives are becoming more appealing to so many smallholders because they often offer farmers financing and other support for improving their farming and processing and are frequently able to offer higher prices for cherry than middlemen. Many cooperatives have initiated quality improvement training for farmer members and are becoming more adept at helping members market their coffee as specialty.