Guatemala Blue Ayarza

Bordered by Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize, and the Pacific Ocean, the Central American country of Guatemala is home to a unique environment especially suited to growing coffee. The horizontal mountain ranges spanning the country create regions of vastly different climates and terrain: It’s dry and cold highlands reach a pinnacle at the highest point in Central America—Volcán Tajumulco, sitting at 13,845 feet; Its lowlands are tropical with humid seasons and span to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Aside from its topographic diversity, Guatemala is hugely significant to Mesoamerica’s nascent history. 

As a hub for ancient Mayan civilization, modern day Guatemala is home to a rich culture, archaeological sites, and historic architecture. A thousand years after the collapse of Mayan civilization, coffee cultivation began. It’s place as a significant agricultural export of the country developed alongside crops like cardamom, maize, and sugarcane. With the progression of coffee cultivation came the need for cooperatives to protect and support farmers. Today, Anacafé is the national coffee institute that provides resources for Guatemalan coffee workers across many regions of the country. 

In the most southern part of the country and close to the border with El Salvador is the Santa Rosa department, where we get this coffee from. The landscape of this region is marked by Laguna de Ayarza, a lake that formed in a crater of two collapsed volcanoes. Farmers from across this region bring the best of their coffee cherries to be dried and milled to be prepared for export. The cherries undergo a natural process, meaning they dry with the fruit left completely intact, allowing them to maintain a rich fruity flavor after they are roasted. Grown between 1,400 and 2,000 meters above sea level, the type of coffee plants that produce these cherries are three different varieties and are called Bourbon, Pache, and Catuai. Once we roasted the coffee here at Lucky Goat, we got tasting notes of tart cherry, almond, and caramel.