Guatemala - Finca El Chorro

The Santa Rosa department has a variety of beneficial microclimates that permit crops to express specialty-grade attributes in the cup. Only recently has it been acknowledged for its strong potential as a specialty coffee origin. The recognition first came when five Santa Rosa lots made it to the 2022 Cup of Excellence, even while it is outside the coffee-growing regions officially designated by the National Coffee Association (ANACAFE).

This predisposition as a terroir producing topnotch quality coffees was reaffirmed in 2023 when Geisha and Pacamara from Santa Rosa once more made it among the highest scoring lots at the Cup of Excellence.

Finca El Chorro, located in the municipality of Barberena, has an agricultural history dating back to the early 1900s, when Swiss immigrants envisioned sustaining their family with a livelihood from cultivating coffee. It’s a vision that continues to be upheld today by Mariano Ventura, a fifth-generation coffee producer, who acquired the land in 2022 and has been increasing the value of the land and its yields by optimizing cultivation practices and post-harvest processing methods and techniques toward improved productivity, higher quality, and continuous innovation.

By collaborating 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 El Chorro 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 a natural anaerobic process, where the attentively sorted ripe cherries were fermented in sealed barrels that were placed in a shaded area, before being spread out on the patio to dry.

As a result, this Barberena, Nueva Santa Rosa lot expresses an intensified dessert-like sweetness in balance with a medley of tropical and dark stone fruit notes.