Organic Guatemalan Coffee – Certified

Organic coffee company, fair trade purveyor of certified organic
Guatemalan coffee - Stonehill Manor, roaster S.A. Wilson. Shade
grown 100% certified organic coffee beans including green coffee.

Central America, and particularly Guatemala, produces some of the finest, if not
the finest coffees in the world. Terms like “kaleidoscopic, exceptionally sweet,
elegant and powerful” have been used by coffee professionals when describing
Guatemalan highland coffees.

The use of large trees for shading coffee is a Guatemalan coffee-growing custom
and is said to have been developed here.

Coffee grown under the proper level of shade takes longer to develop, which
favors the development of rich and complex flavors. On top of that, shade-grown
coffee is one of the most environmentally benign crops in the world and is perhaps
the ideal agro forestry crop. Over 100 species of shade trees have been counted
on a single Guatemalan coffee farm.

Sun drying on "patios" is the traditional way in Guatemala. The coffee is raked in
every evening and put out again during the day for one to two weeks. There is still
one layer, the parchment, to be taken off of the berry before final grading and
shipping.

Coffee from Guatemala
By Randy Wilson

In Guatemala coffee grows in the heart of what was once the center of the Great
Mayan Civilization. The Maya ruled this region of Central America from around
2500 BC until the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors in mid 1500 AD.

Coffee arrived in Central America from the Caribbean around 1700 and local
cultivation began shortly after. Commercial export of coffee from Guatemala did
not begin until the mid 1800’s as the square-rigged sailing ships of the day could
only travel downwind. The trade winds blew the ships across the Atlantic toward
the coast of Central America, but there was no easy way to sail back east. The
advent of clipper ships around 1850, which could point higher into the wind, made
commercial exports possible.

In order to export Guatemalan coffee the small growers expanded into full-scale
production. This led to a land war of sorts and the larger plantations took over the
small ones, sometimes by buying those out and sometimes by force. In
Guatemala, coffee- growing land is in small supply, being that the country is in
small supply, being that the country is about the size of a small US state.

The larger plantations, or fincas, were owned mostly by wealthy descendants of
the Spanish Conquistadors who viewed the native Maya people as inferior. They
quickly enslaved large populations of Mayans to work on the Guatemala coffee
farms. As you may expect they did not submit voluntarily and a bloody resistance
ensued.

In 1877, the Guatemala government passed a law that made it easier for
foreigners to get land, granting exemptions for taxes and import duties on
machinery and tools. Many Germans fleeing the political unrest in their country
took advantage of the opportunity and set up operations to grow, process and
export coffee from Guatemala. The German influence had a very positive effect
on the coffee industry in Guatemala. The Germans brought capital and
modernization to a poor and under developed country. They financed the
construction of a railroad from the mountainous interior to the sea to transport
coffee. They built sea ports for the ships and processing plants that were
previously unavailable to smaller growing operations.

The Germans also treated the Mayan workers better, paying them for their labor,
not as much as they would pay non-Mayan workers, but it was definitely an
improvement. This however, caused dissent among the Spanish plantation owners
who were used to getting their labor for free. The Spanish tried to lobby the
government to pass laws that made paying the Mayan illegal but they were
unsuccessful.

Today, coffee from Guatemala is highly respected among aficionados and is prized
for its smooth character, balanced acidity and full flavor.

© Copyright Randy Wilson, All Rights Reserved.

Organic coffee company, fair trade purveyor of certified organic
Guatemalan coffee - Stonehill Manor, roaster S.A. Wilson. Shade grown
100% certified organic coffee beans including green coffee.