Vinaros - Guatemala 2012 Verified listing

Overview

Vinaros is located in San Miguel Tucuru, Alta Verapaz; a wonderfully humid region with remarkable mountains, rainforests and impressive flora. It is located in the upper part of Alta Verapaz, around 50 miles from the city of Coban, a region that produces every type of coffee grains, from extra prime to strictly hard bean coffee. The farm altitude goes from 1700 to 4500 feet above sea level (510 to 1,372 meters) and the annual precipitation is around 3500 mm. Flowering takes place during January thru April, and the harvest season is between September and December.
The farm is a family business that initiated as a coffee plantation in early twentieth century, and has now initiated the transition of the lower areas to a rubber tree plantation. The coffee is produced actually by a father/sons team of the Valdes Family.
The coffee farm has 165 hectares of coffee plantation where it produces mostly hard and strictly hard bean coffee, of different varieties (Bourbón, Caturra, Catuai and Robusta). The annual production is around 2,000 (69 kilo bags) of green coffee, exported to different countries, such as: Denmark, Japan and Germany. In the United States of America the coffee has been sold to different companies, such as Starbucks. In Vinaros the coffee growing process is focused in environmental responsibility; they have a 145 hectares reserve of natural forest, and 25 hectares are a reforestation area planted with cedar and teak trees. That actions help to preserved natural water resources in the farm, and to be habitat for different kinds of animals, such as deer, birds and bobcats. By the other side, we used the pulp of coffee beans as an organic fertilizer. As far as quality is concerned, we take care of every step during the production process since the seed selection to storing final step. The coffee is handpicked, especially by women and then is processed in an ecological wet mill to reduce the water consumption; then water is recycled. Coffee beans are dried following two processes: sun dry and, due to climate, also in coffee dryers.