Get a taste for what’s in your cup
Highlights from our Guatemala 2017 visit to the awe-inspiring farm of Santa Clara
A few of us from Bean Around the World were lucky enough to make our way down to Antigua, Guatemala at the end of April. This was Bean Around the World’s third time down there and the coffee is still produced by the same amazing people. The farm we visited is called Finca Santa Clara located in Antigua Valley. It’s nestled in between three active volcanoes that overtime has enriched the soil that produces these award winning beans. We like to call it the hot-shot of coffees.
We wanted to visit one of our supplier’s farms during picking season to experience the agricultural process first hand. In an industry that spans the globe, we believe it’s important to visit the farms to not only get educated on the coffee, but also to get to know the faces behind the beans. We love to go visit our friends on the farm and we strive to continue to add value to their lives. Sure you can read about different coffee processes online, but nothing compares to kicking a ball around with the kids during the day and clinking cervezas with new friends in the evening.
The expansiveness of thousands of coffee plants can only fully be appreciated from a bird’s eye view. That’s why we took our drone out to capture some of these amazing sights and bring the magic of Guatemala back with us.
Every single coffee cherry is picked off the plants by hand. Once the cherries are separated from the crop, they undergo a secondary sorting by hand to ensure every bean meets Ricardo Zelaya Coffee’s high-quality standards.
After the beans are extracted from the cherry (pulped), washed, dried and rested in parchment. Then they are polished and shipped directly to us, where we roast them by hand too! Our Guatemala Santa Clara truly is an artisanal roast from the ground up. The trip was a really eye-opening experience and we can’t wait to go back soon to visit Ricardo and his family. Until then, co-owner of BATW Barney Mckenzie tells us how this amazing relationship with Ricardo Zelaya came to be.