Varietal: Anacafe 14, Bourbon, Catuai, Pache, San Ramon
Altitude: 1400-2000 metres above sea level
Process: Washed
Flavours: Black Cherry, Green Apple. Peach, Caramel
Importer: Covoya
Where is it from?
About This Coffee
This washed lot was processed at Olam's cherry mill in Ayarza, Santa Rosa. In Guatemala, coffee is traditionally processed individually by smallholder farmers, making it difficult to manage and guarantee quality from lot to lot. Their team in Ayarza works with numerous farmers in the region, paying a premium for ripe cherries and processing them centrally to maintain strict standards throughout.
Francisco Nájera is one of many local producers theh work with at Ayarza cherry mill. Francisco was born in El Naranjo town in the Jutiapa department of Guatemala. He is 30 years old, married with two children and has been working in the coffee production business for around 15 years. Cultivating various small plots covering just under 1ha in total, Francisco is a small producer but a great entrepreneur, and has excelled in the coffee production business despite the adversity and constant threat of various coffee diseases. He also dedicates part of his time to developing coffee tree nursery services to sell saplings to other farmers in the region.
The Region
The region of Ayarza is a special one, marked by the drastic landscape and cold blue water from the Laguna de Ayarza and Laguna Azul. The lake was formed by two massive volcanoes that collapsed and formed a large crater. The legends surrounding this lake are numerous, and the bottom has never been found. There is a large white rock of a petrified woman who didn’t follow the orders of Jesus. In short, there are simply too many good stories about Ayarza to do it justice!
Olam Guatemala always knew the region had massive potential to produce speciality coffee, but the cups that we found were usually solid but unsurprising. Two years ago, Olam rented a wet mill at 1,500 meters on an RFA-certified farm. The quality of their washed coffee was much better than we expected. Next we tried some naturals by buying cherries in Ayarza and transporting it to a region that had plenty of patios and good wind for drying. This has now been extended to include the honey process alongside experimental lots.
The Process
At the Olam Cherry mill, have several options as to how they can process washed coffee. The beginning of the process is the same for all: strict picking and reception standards (picked ripe with less than 3% of greens), cherry floatation, de-pulping and screen sorting to remove any remaining under-ripes. From this point, there are two paths that the coffee can take.
Path 1: The coffee is fermented for 14 hours using a Fermaestro to determine the end of the fermentation, washed, dried on the patio and finished in a mechanical drier.
Path 2: the coffee is sent straight to the mechanical washers (removing the mucilage), sent through a Centriflux to remove excess water, then dried at low temperatures mechanically.
Natural factors, along with the two paths above, mean that the coffee can exhibit subtly different profiles. One profile tends to be more acidic, and the body is a touch lighter; this exhibits the winey character that cuppers often catch on fruity lots, so we call this ‘Vinoso’. The other profile is sweeter and a little more body-driven – this is the standard top-washed profile for Santa Rosa, but sometimes we call it ‘classic’.
