About This Coffee
San Miguelito is home to K’iche’ Maya communities and coffee is one of the most important sources of work in the area. The whole family pitches in to bring coffee to harvest and market, from tending the trees through to the work that follows picking.
Families sell their coffee through COPECAFE, a cooperative based in Sololá. COPECAFE works with FECCEG (Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala), which provides producers with technical support and training to improve their farming practices. The idea is straightforward: better farming should mean better coffee and a better living for the families who grow it.
Cultivation
The plots that make up this lot sit between 1,100 and 1,700 metres above sea level, spread between the municipalities of Nahualá and Santa María in the department of Sololá. The climate here is cool, and the altitude allows the cherries to mature slowly on the tree. Families cultivate Caturra, Catuaí and Bourbon using Fair Trade, organic and Rainforest Alliance practices. Their certifications help them earn price premiums and FECCEG has used them to fund community projects focused on gender equality and food security.
FECCEG runs 25 community biofertilizer plants, and technicians train farmers to compost coffee pulp, wastewater and parchment husks. These go back into the soil to support yields, build resilience to climate change and help protect plants against leaf rust.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
The harvest runs from November to February. Cherry is selectively handpicked at peak ripeness. After picking, the coffee is depulped and fermented with its mucilage under controlled conditions. Once fermentation is complete, the parchment is Fully washed and laid out on patios until moisture is reduced evenly across the lot.
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.