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Guadalupe Bautista is the new owner of Finca Alejandrina, a 13 hectare coffee farm in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Guadalupe picks ripe coffee cherries and depulps them the same day before fermenting for up to 40 hours. After the fermentation, the coffee is washed three times in washing canals before being dried for five days.
Some of you might recognize Finca Alejandrina as Herman Alvarado's farm. We had been buying from Herman for a few harvests, but as his health declined, he sold his farm to his neighbor- Guadalupe Bautista. Guadalupe also now owns and operates Alejandrina, near to his own farm Vega. He also grows vegetables and corn to be sold into local markets.
The department Huehuetenango Guatemala borders Mexico's southern border. Within Huehuetenango, there are multiple municipalities that produce coffee. Each municipality is unique. What they all have in common is clean, complex coffee. The farmers of Huehue have a unique washing process and is found in parts of Africa, but typically not in Latin America. After the coffee is depulped, it gets fermented in tubs and then it is spread into a long concrete canal that is flooded with water to rinse and wash the mucilage off of the coffee. Producers will walk down the canal with a large paddle, agitating and rinsing the coffee as water rushes by. Not all producers use washing canals, but it's something we've noticed is unique to the area.
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