HIGHLAND COOP - WASHED - GUATEMALA

Huehuetenango is a great place to grow coffee- limestone soils, high mountain altitudes, cold nights and hot days all come together to allow for the production of high-quality coffee. Our coffees from Guatemala sometimes arrive a bit later in the year because we’re waiting for the coffees from Huehuetenango to ripen and be processed, and we’re committed to waiting for partner producers’ last pickings to dry so that we can pay premium prices for their lots. This is an area where small farmers process and dry their own coffee, as opposed to selling red cherries to the local coyote. Selling dry parchment coffee allows smallholders to take the biggest piece of the pie possible.

This blend represents our purchasing commitment in action- we want to make sure that we were able to purchase a wide variety of coffees from long-term producer partners, including coffees that performed best when blended together. Traditional sourcing models often reward only a small portion of a producer’s harvest- the very highest-scoring microlots- while the rest is left behind or undervalued. With long-term relationships and clear communication during the harvest season, the producers that we work with know that they can count on us to purchase a range of their coffees- and they process their cherries carefully, knowing that it will be fairly valued and compensated. The 2025 purchasing season was a challenging one- volatile coffee prices created incentives for many producers without obvious buyers to pick cherries quickly to take advantage of high prices in an uncertain context. High fertilizer prices and inflation continued to keep producers’ costs high this season. About a few of the contributors to this community lot:

Antonio Martínez is a second-generation coffee producer from El Chalum, Huehuetenango. He manages two lots—Cerro Verde and Lote de la Finca—planted with bourbon, caturra, San Ramón, and gesha. Antonio is relatively new to specialty coffee, and already committed to experimentation and quality, using terracing, soil testing, and a blend of organic and chemical fertilization to improve plant health and yields. He oversees the processing and shares physical infrastructure with his father, Jorge. Labor shortages and input costs were the key challenges of the season.

Erick Perez contributed two lots from two separate parcels- Las Cuevas (which is the biggest of his lots) at 1800 masl, and his smaller plot called Las Ventanas at 1560 masl in Hoja Blanca. Erick works alongside his father Adiel to process his coffee, and he has been pushing his family to focus on quality processing. They process all of their coffee at a wet mill across the street from the family home, using a screen to keep under- and over-ripe cherries out of the fermentation tank, and fermenting the coffee carefully to keep the coffee mass from getting too hot. They have caturra and bourbon varieties on their parcels.

Cruz Perez is in charge of commercializing the ASDEFLOR association’s coffee. His coffee parcels sit at an average altitude of 1700 masl and are home to caturra, bourbon and villa sarchi varieties. Don Cruz championed the construction of the association’s collective wet-mill, with large concrete tanks, patio space and African beds. This wet mill has lifted the quality of individual producers’ coffees who often don’t have reliable access to electricity, clean water or proper drying facilities to process their excellent cherries to specialty standards.