San Agustin Las Cañas - Guatemala 2014 Verified listing

Is located in the eastern slopes of the Antigua Valley.  The altitude of this farm ranges between 1600 to 1880 meters above sea level.  Its profound soils are filled with organic material, which combined with a more humid and cold microclimate, both help to produce a very tasteful and rich coffee.  The plantation is covered with Gravilea shade trees, which are used to give the coffee plants the right amount of sunshine during the different stages of their life.

This farm is originally part of finca Cabrejo, a very old and renowned farm in the Antigua area.  Elsa Hegel, owner of San Agustin, and her husband Francisco Salazar, used to run the farm for a few years.  It was until the crisis in prices and frosts affected the plantation and forced them to abandon the farm.  In 2005, they make a long term deal of renting the farm to Ricardo Zelaya, a coffee producer in the Antigua area and owner of finca Santa Clara.   This was beneficial for both parties because the team of supervision and agricultural works and infrastructure from Santa Clara, are the ones used for San Agustin coffee as well.

The old plantation used to be much damaged and in no conditions to recover and produce good yields.  Therefore, between 2005 and 2006, Zelaya planted again this 25 hectares farm.  The main varieties planted are Caturra, Villa Sarchi and Bourbón.   These carefully handpicked cherries are processed in the mill of Finca Santa Clara. The process is traditional and it includes the coffee being fermented around 16 hours, then washed very carefully with clean water, and then dried in concrete patios or in African beds inside a greenhouse made exclusively to give a better drying process to the coffee.  After 15 to 20 days in the drying process, the coffee is stored in the warehouse and cupped by Q graders cuppers to assure the quality of this beautiful coffee.

The dry mill process is also made in the Santa Clara mill.   The green coffee is sorted by weight, size, density and color, until a special and clean preparation is achieved.   Therefore, the buyers of this coffee can be sure that the lots they buy go from the farm to the port and then directly to the client anywhere around the world.  San Agustin is a two time winner of the finals of The Cup of Excellence for 2013 and 2014.