Guatalon - Guatemala 2014 Verified listing

The road drags you in a landscape of unsuspected beauty. The dirt disguises every mile like daring your imagination to find what you think is an ideal terrain for growing such a noble bean. The narrower the path, the wider view posing with luxuriant nature and magnificent mountain hills until your eyes discover El Guatalón and Annexes, integrated by five parcels: La Loma, El Cuje, Honduras , El Pajuil and El Guatalón. The first one belongs to Jalapa department while the other three are located in Santa Rosa department, in the municipality of Santa Rosa de Lima.

The paternal grandfather, Daniel Juarez  (1,883-1,976), established the first commercial coffee plantation in this region in the early of the 20th century, (year 1,910) in the village of Belen, Santa Rosa de Lima, using the genetic materials Typica and Mundo Novo. In the next generation only our dad, Juan Alberto Juarez Reyes (1,929-2,012), took the decision to grow coffee commercially, establishing his plantation in El Cuje parcel by the mid 70s, in an area of 4 hectares. On this location he planted the varieties Pache San Ramon and Catuai.

We are determinate to achieve higher prices for our efforts.  In May 2012, our coffee was very close to qualify for the Cup of Excellence auction. This coffee lot ended up in the 24th place, just one spot behind. We have always been selected during the national and international competition.  We knew there was still one step further, just an extra one. Finally our dreams have become true, on May 16th, 2014 we receive the reward, and our farm was selected as one of the best Guatemala n coffees. This is considered for us not a reward but a challenge from now to the future; to continue making efforts to enhance the coffee quality produce in our farms.  “We do have a wet mill which capacity is 2,500 bags of parchment coffee.  But we normally sell in cherry to the middleman. We want to go further now. We know we can deliver higher quality”.  After all, we know living and succeeding is just about that: always make an extra effort.

It will be now up to us, the buyer, to say if the effort was worthwhile making.

Farming is for us “University´s life for everyday", walking, observing, planning, etc. Coffee plant beautiful culture that might need our entire life and not ended to know.

Sustainability is the integration of many factors that participate in our operations, in which we can’t separate environment, society,  good agricultural practices, passion and the final taste for somebody, somewhere in a pleasant site reserve for coffee lovers that recognize our efforts resumed just in that moment.

Coffee production in El Guatalon and annexes is done in a friendly manner with the nature and society.

Forestry, water births and water corps are well protected in our farms, buffer zones are traced in all creeks, not only to protect water courses, but as connected path for wild life, endangered wild species have been identified in our reserves and is our responsibility to preserve their environment.

Good Agronomic Practices are apply in our coffee growing operations, soil conservation is our main challenge, contour lines are traced before planting, one year after planting terraces are built to provide better growing conditions to our coffee bushes, other forestry species like gravilea, cuje or cushin are planted in parcels that needs improvements in shade.