Guatemalan coffee is revered as one of the most flavorful and nuanced cups in the world. Due to our proximity to Guatemala, some of the finest coffees from this origin come to the United States. Guatemalan growing regions vary in their potential cup quality: many have sufficient altitude, soil and climate conditions. Antiguas are well-known and highly rated. Huehuetenango from the north highland can be exceptional and have distinct fruit flavors. Coban, Fraijanes and Quiche can be nice, but they need to be cupped carefully: they can have a nice cup but sometimes less complexity and depth. Atitlan has produced some very fine coffees in the past few years. But remember, you can't count on any origin to necessarily produce a great coffee: the quality cup is still hard to find among even the most celebrated and recognized regions ...in this case Antigua.

Politics in Guatemala have often interfered with the quality of Guatemalan coffee, and more importantly the shared success of the coffee farmer great and small. Unfortunately, if you read the history books, our nation has played a great role in the state-sponsored violence*. In general, remember this: Specialty coffee purchases from co-ops, smaller farms or single-owner estates (that is, all the coffee we offer). To support the "coffee elite" you buy lower-grade, low-grown cheap coffee produced and sold in huge volumes through the giant exporters. In general, buying Specialty coffee sold from small lots and established farms and co-ops means you are supporting farms and workers in a fairly direct way. Guatemala imposes a minimum wage for coffee-pickers, and it is paid on established farms and co-ops, but with the low-grown no-name coffees, who knows?

It's a bit dated, but here is a travelogue I did for a trip to northern Guatemala. More recently, my notes and pictures from the 2006 Guatemala Cup of Excellence competition are uploaded and 2 trips from early 2008, linked from our Coffee Library page.- Tom

* For more info...

Beautiful, well-fertilized: Super shiny coffee Finca Rabanales in Fraijanes region, 2006

A stream through Finca El Injerto, Huehuetenango

Cup of Coffee? Yes, of a sort. Reproducing coffee from plant material, not seeds, at the Anacafe research lab. No, this isn't genetic "franken-coffee," just a reliable way they are experimenting with hybrids.