Guatemala Blue Ayarza (2019 Crop)

Francisco Nájera is one of many local producers we 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.

At the Olam Cherry mill we have several options as to how we 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.

Each process yields a slightly different cup profile. The fermented coffee tends to be more acidic and the body is a touch lighter. The mechanically de-mucilaged coffee tends to have the same cup score but the profile is sweeter and a little more body driven.

The region of Ayarza is a special one, landmarked by the drastic landscape and cold blue water from the Laguna de Ayarza and Laguna Azul. The lake was formed by two massive volcanos 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 specialty coffee, but the cups that we found were usually solid but unsurprising. Two years ago we rented a wet mill at 1,500 meters on a RFA certified farm. The quality coming from our washed coffee was much better than we expected. Next we tried some naturals by buying cherry in Ayarza and transporting it to a region that had plenty of patios and good wind for drying. Lastly we tried honey process.

For this 19/20 harvest we are doing our classic processes: washed, natural and honey. We are also testing the boundaries of processing with anaerobic fermentations and carrying out a set of 10 experiments, with extended fermentation times.