We’ve only had Guatemalan coffee three times before, so we had to bring one back asap! Thanks to our friends at Primavera Green Coffee, experts in sourcing directly from top Guatemalan producers. They ensure transparent value chains and fair rewards for coffee farmers, something we truly value at Keen Coffee.
Filberto Pablo Pablo is a first-generation coffee producer in the town of San Antonio Huista, in Huehuetenango region, adjacent to the Mexican border. Filberto’s cherries are picked in a total of two picking passes on the land to ensure that only the ripe cherries are picked. The cherries are depulped the same day of the picking and fermented in tubs for 24 hours. The coffee is then washed and moved to patios to dry in a 5 cm thick layer for five days. “We bought the land which had some old and abandoned trees and we had to plant all new trees and work hard on it”, says Filberto. He has been working with coffee for over 10 years by now and there’s not a single day he doesn’t visit the farm to take care that all the plants are healthy and vigorous. Growing coffee is his only profession and his family depends on it.
The Huehuetenango region is unique because it’s non-volcanic, unlike many of Guatemala’s other coffee-growing areas. Instead, the region benefits from its high altitudes and the warm, dry winds from the Mexican Tehuantepec plain, which protect the coffee plants from frost. Conditions that contribute to the development of complex, vibrant flavors in this coffee.
