This washed lot was processed at a cherry mill in Ayarza, Santa Rosa. In Guatemala, coffee is traditionally processed individually by smallholder farmers, making it difficult to manage and guarantee quality form lot to lot. Our importer's team in Ayarza works with numerous farmers in the region, paying a premium for ripe cherry and processing it centrally to maintain strict standards throughout.

Francisco Nájera is one of many local producers at Ayarza cherry mill. Francisco was born in El Naranjo town in the Jutiapa department of Guatemala. He is 30 years old, married with two children and has been working in the coffee production business for around 15 years. Cultivating various small plots covering just under 1ha in total, Francisco is a small producer but a great entrepreneur, and has excelled in the coffee production business despite the adversity and constant threat of various coffee diseases. He also dedicates part of his time to developing coffee tree nursery services to sell saplings to other farmers in the region.

The region

The region of Ayarza is a special one, landmarked by the drastic landscape and cold blue water from the Laguna de Ayarza and Laguna Azul. The lake was formed by two massive volcanos that collapsed and formed a large crater.

The legends surrounding this lake are numerous and the bottom has never been found. There is a large white rock of a petrified woman who didn’t follow the orders of Jesus. In short, there are simply too many good stories about Ayarza to do it justice!

Our importer's branch in Guatemala always knew the region had massive potential to produce specialty coffee, but the cups they found were usually solid but unsurprising. Two years ago they rented a wet mill at 1,500 meters on a RFA certified farm. The quality coming from washed coffee was much better than expected. Next they tried some naturals by buying cherry in Ayarza and transporting it to a region that had plenty of patios and good wind for drying. This has now been extended to include honey process alongside experimental lots.

The process

The Ayarza washed process is a hybrid of traditional washed processing with mechanical demucilage processing. After years of refinement, this was found to offer a 'best of both worlds' scenario, here's why:

Mechanical demucilagers use a fraction of the water of traditional washed processing. This has a number of benefits, not least a significant reduction in environmental footprint from water usage and the production of waste water. Waste water from washed coffee processing is a challenging byproduct of any facility producing washed coffee, anywhere in the world. Waste water is contaminated with organic pollutants which can wreak havoc on ecosystems if released into local rivers, so the water is either treated to remove these pollutants (a costly process), or it is pooled into seepage pits which, while preferable to polluting local rivers, is not a scalable long term solution to the problem.

A potential downside of the demucilage process is that it skips fermentation altogether. Without a need to ferment coffee to break down its sugary mucilage for washing, a functional approach would consider fermentation redundant. But fermentation in washed processing does more than allow for the enzymatic breakdown of mucilage, it also adds flavour and character to the final cup. 

So, after numerous tests and tweaks, a 4-6 hour fermentation is included followed by mechanical demucilaging. This allows for a welcome extra hint of fruit in the cup profile, whilst retaining the eco-benefits of mechanical washing.