Coffee Kids of Guatemala.

Mirabelle, plum and apple give a soft, fruity base, while citrus lifts the cup and milk chocolate rounds everything off with a warm sweetness. A coffee that is easy to like, yet has enough character to stand out.

The coffee comes from New Oriente in Guatemala, where it is grown on small farms in the Ch’orti area around Olopa and Esquipulas. Here the coffee grows at 1,500–1,700 metres in a rainy, cloudy landscape shaped by an old volcanic mountain range. The altitude and climate let the cherries ripen slowly, which helps build sweetness, density and complexity in the cup.

Coffee facts

Origin: New Oriente, Guatemala
Area: Ch’orti, near Olopa and Esquipulas
Altitude: 1,500–1,700 m above sea level
Varieties: Bourbon, Pache, Catuai and Caturra
Harvest: December–March
Process: Fully washed
Drying: Sun-dried
Cupping score: 84.25 points
Roast: Medium roast
Flavours: Mirabelle, plum, apple, citrus and milk chocolate

GREEN VALLEYS OF THE CHORTI

Green Valleys of the Chorti takes its name from the Ch’orti’, an indigenous people with roots in Maya culture who live in the border areas between Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The Ch’orti language comes from the same language family found in the inscriptions at the famous Copán ruins, and is still spoken by more than 45,000 people in Guatemala.

The coffee is produced by smallholders in the area and is fully washed and sun-dried. The result is a clean, clear cup where the fruit gets plenty of room, while the sweetness and body hold the coffee together beautifully.

But Green Valleys of the Chorti is not only about quality in the cup.

During the coffee harvest, the work on many farms coincides with school holidays. For many families that can be a very practical challenge: the parents need to work during the most important period of the year, while the children need somewhere safe to be.

To meet that need, Volcafe Guatemala together with the non-profit Funcafe have developed what they call Coffee Kids Camps.

The camps started in the Huehuetenango region and are now growing to Cubulco and Santa Rosa. The goal is that children should not have to do any work during the harvest.

The camps give children a safe place to be while their parents work on the coffee harvest. There the children get warm meals and teaching focused on nutrition, coffee and sustainable farming methods. Each camp runs for about 35 days and costs around USD 4,500 to fund.

The volume from the Green Valleys of the Chorti project is intended to help fund two Coffee Kids Camps.

For us, this is exactly the kind of coffee that makes specialty coffee so interesting. You get a really good coffee in your cup, while the coffee is linked to a concrete project that creates value where it is actually produced.