Guatemala - Finca Durazno

Huehuetenango is recognized as one of the districts that dominate the annual Guatemala Cup of Excellence with top scoring lots showcasing different varieties, from the more traditional Bourbon and Caturra to the rare Geisha.

With smallholder coffee plantations situated in remote, mountainous terrains that are in the highest elevations across the country, Huehuetenango’s coffee plantations have been known through the years as a source of high-quality coffees with pleasantly prominent acidity and a complex character that can include floral and fruited notes accompanied by a heavy body.

The physical constraints borne out of the natural environment pose the logistical challenge of transporting harvested coffee cherries to any external facilities for post-harvest processing, prompting coffee growers to implement processing protocols on-site themselves.

Finca Durazno owned by Octavio Lopez Camposeco, is one of those smallholder coffee farms.

By working with specialty coffee multi-hyphenate Raul Rodas — four-time Guatemala National Barista Champion, the World Barista Champion in 2012, and 2024 Guatemala National Brewer’s Cup Champion — also the founder of Paradigma Coffee Trading, Finca Durazno gains insight into patterns of consuming trends in the international specialty coffee market.

This knowledge, gained through Raul’s constant and open communication across his network of world-class roasters, enables them to orient strategic and operational activities at the farm-level toward meeting and pro-actively anticipating consumers’ needs.

For Raul’s part too, he has resolved to be high-quality green coffee buyers’ “eyes, ears, and taste buds on the ground,” matching their requirements with the producers and farms in his dossier, to configure the right combination of specific varieties and processing methods that will construct the desired cup profiles.

Bourbon is highly regarded for its excellent cup quality potential when cultivated at the highest elevations and processed with intention. For this reason, coffee farmers in South and Central America maintain plantings of Bourbon, despite its tendency for lower production and vulnerability to adverse elements, alongside its hardier descendants like the Caturra.

Caturra, a natural mutation of Bourbon, has better prospects for productivity — one reason being its short stature, making it easier to pick cherries from — combined with good cup quality potential. It was first introduced to Guatemala after being bred en masse in Brazil toward the 1940s.

For this lot, Bourbon and Caturra which had grown in proximity to each other were carefully hand-harvested, as customary in Guatemala.

They were then processed together following an updated washed process after meticulous sorting to ensure only the good quality cherries would be used.

Prompted by a dry spell that lasted for a few years to explore processing techniques that would result in interesting yet clean cup profiles while reducing the amount of water used, Octavio first partially dried the coffees in cherry and then subjected them to multiple passes of pulping and fermentation in tanks before laying them out on the patio to dry.

As a result, this Huehuetenango lot expresses a familiarly sweet, nutty, and chocolatey cup balanced by refreshingly mild acidity.