I would like to add a missing story from our trip to Guatemala. We left Huehuetenango 2 weeks ago, the coffee region located in the Northwest part of Guatemala, early in the morning headed to Guatemala City. We spent almost 6 hours driving and although it was a scenic trip, the road is still under construction making it even longer. We had to be patient due to constant stops. We were amused by the construction workers who were armed with a sign in one hand and a steel plate with nails on it in the other. If anyone failed to stop, the steel plate would be placed on the ground in front of the disobeying car. If the car continued to move forward, they wouldn’t make it too far before all tires were flattened. That’s one way to get people to stop!

After arriving into Guatemala City, we headed to one of the final destinations of this coffee tour, a mill plant. We had a meeting with Mr. Humberto, the manager of SuBeneficio, the plant that processes our Huehue coffee. For those who are not familiar with this process the coffee is usually sold within the coffee producer’s countries in parchment as shown in the picture. Guatemala is no exception and coffee is transported by trucks from the farm to the mill in this stage. There are two main reasons for doing this; one is
husk-3



that coffee growers do not have the technology to process the coffee at this stage and the second reason is mainly for quality issues. Once the coffee arrives at the mill it goes through 4 main processes: hauling or removing the husk, size selection, density selection and color selection.

After the last step, the coffee is left in its final stage. (aka café oro or green bean) Each bag weighs approximately 152 pounds and is classified by size, based on agreements made by the buyers. Mr. Humberto informed us that this mill is able to prepare coffee from the smallest to the largest size. This includes Caracol (Peaberry), European Standard (Coffee above screen 15), Gourmet preparation (Coffee above screen 16) and Elephant type. This mill also prepares other presentations previously arranged by clients from all over the world.
SuBeneficio Mill plant at Guatemala City

We (Stephanie and I) had the opportunity to cup our Farm Friendly Direct coffee from Finca El Paternal along with five coffees from different regions of Guatemala. These areas included Fraiganes, San Marcos, Coban, Antigua and Equipules. We found subtle but clearly perceivable differences between them. For instance, the coffee from Esquipules had a sweet and sugar cane flavor rather than a well balanced Paternal coffee from Huehue. In addition, we found very pleasant fruity flavors with hints of chocolate. As the coffees cooled, we found that some coffees stayed nicely balanced while only a few of them kept the same characteristics intact.
We encourage all coffee lovers to visit a mill plant at origin, if given the opportunity. Many people don’t see this stage of coffee production. We found this experience to be invaluable.