Coffee in Guatemala – one of the best quality

As early as the 18th century, Spanish Jesuits brought the first coffee plants from Yemen to Guatemala.
In the 1850s and 1860s the coffee industry began to develop.
During the colonial period, the indigenous population of the Maya was expropriated and turned into “Colonos”.
They were still allowed to live in the land but had to work for it.
Unfortunately, some fincas still work today according to the colonial era.

However, the trend is clearly away from a few families controlling the cultivation, the ANACAFE (the national coffeeboard) – to local agricultural cooperatives, which are committed to the needs of small farmers.
At that time, as today, coffee in Guatemala is the country’s most important export product.
Areas of cultivation on 500 – 1,200 m are: Fraijanes, Antigua, Huehuetenango, Coban, San Marcos, Nuevo Oriente and Atitlan.
Coffee in Guatemala is mainly Arabica, to a small extent Robusta varieties.
The quality class SHB (Strictly Hard Bean) gets coffees from high cultivation areas, where they grow slower and thus to a high-quality coffee in Guatemala with a fine aroma.
The coffee is mostly hand-picked and sun-dried.
The active volcanoes make the soil very fertile and give the coffee a very spicy aroma with a slightly smoky note.
The taste of coffee in Guatemala is balanced, the coffee in Guatemala has a full body and a very fine acidity.
Just a decade ago almost 100% of Guatemalan coffee was exported to countries like the US, Europe and Japan.
Today, 10 % of the coffee produced in Guatemala stays in the country.

Only in recent years have Guatemalans started consuming their own world-renowned product on a larger scale.
Cafes like El Injerto have opened since 2009. Meanwhile, the Cuatro Grados Norte neighborhood in Guatemala City has the highest number of independent cafes.

Most Guatemalans brew rather weak coffee and drink it with lots of sugar.
For this, the coffee is simply boiled in a normal pot and then filled into cups.
The share of instant coffee grows in Guatemala – in 2015 it was already 8% of coffee consumption.

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