Coffee in Guatemala

Let's call this Part 3 of my Coffee Talk 'series' - I deeply appreciate all of your encouragement and enthusiasm for my snobby hobby, and I hope you're all enjoying reading about my learnings and adventures in coffee. In my last two articles, I went in depth into how I was learning about pulling good shots of espresso - but let's go a bit farther back in the process.

A couple weeks ago I escaped with my wife to Guatemala, out on assignment to attend my cousin's wedding in Antigua. It's a beautiful city, and we roamed around the cobblestone streets eating snacks, drinking coffee, and also made our way out to Lake Atitlán for a day trip. I'll spare you some of the more tourist stuff, but we did camp on a volcano so we could watch another volcano erupt (Volcán de Fuego). It erupted a lot. Like I'd wake up in the middle of the night to what sounded like a jet flying over head and then go, oh, nope, that's the volcano across the street.

Our first coffee adventure was out on Lake Atitlán, a crater lake formed by a massive volcanic explosion some 80,000 years ago. The surface was a bit choppy, but we took a boat and bopped around to three different towns sitting on the lake's edge. San Juan La Laguna was home to Cafe Las Marias, a tiny coffee shop run by two women. It was small, and featured a narrow stairway up to where they pulled shots of espresso ... by hand.

They boiled their water downstairs in a kettle, then ran it back up to pour it and some freshly ground coffee in the top of one of the Aeropresses they had set up under wooden levers. I watched one of the Marias throw a hand towel over the lever and pull down slowly but firmly, eyeballing the espresso shot as it poured. No scales, no pressure gauges, just feel - and god damn it, they're making better espresso than I am at home with my machine.

For milk frothing, they had one of those countertop frothers - so they had cut out of the entire need for an expensive machine and were still getting quality out of their set up. I was rushed in my visit here because we only had a little bit of time, but I was sort of taken aback and humbled by their craft.

On our next stop on the lake, we visited Cafe Las Cristalinas in San Pedro La Laguna, and talked at length about their Bourbon (an Arabica varietal) coffee grown in volcanic soil on fincas (farms) around the lake.

From right to left

• coffee that was taken before it was ready and ripe
• red, ripe coffee ready for harvest (everywhere we went, this was done by hand)
• the cascara (coffee cherry) split, showing the beans - this one was big, brown, and had three beans (attributed by the owner to the volcanic soil)
• The "parchment" coffee, when the beans have been washed and sun dried - they call it parchment because it is papery & yellow
• what we know as green coffee, which is ready for roast
• three roast levels
• ground coffee :)

At this point I was sort of realizing Guatemalan shops like to serve their coffee with a darker roast in general - 'Full City' was listed on several menus, so somewhere between a medium and dark. It was never oily, so definitely not burnt (looking at you, Starbucks) but still not my preference. I think this comes from a focus on espresso rather than pour over culture, but that's just a guess.

A few days later in Antigua we went on a coffee farm tour - well, sans farm. We met with the farmer (he also roasted and shipped, I think) and talked about the coffee business, co-ops, and life growing coffee. He and his family were lovely, and he took us to his urban lot that he had purchased and converted to a coffee plant nursery. I enjoyed learning about the plants and looking at the differences between Arabica (the kind of coffee you likely have all the time) and Robusta (the resilient, hardy coffee with less desirable flavor). He also vaguely referenced his "experiments" on this lot but I didn't inquire further.

Our last farm excursion was to Cafe Azotea in Antigua. They were multiple degrees larger than the other places we had been, and it was fun seeing the 'scale up' from a smaller family farm to a macro producer. They had a patio the size of a football field purely for drying out washed coffee beans (getting to the parchment stage, reducing moisture):

They turned the coffee over with tractors many times a day - I forget how often. Nearby underneath awnings, they had huge burlap bags of beans ready to ship. They walked us from the plants, to the pulper (?), to where the beans were washed (after removing the cherry, they have a honey stickiness to them) and then over to where they're spread out on the patio.

They also had a fun little museum of coffee roasting and brewing antiques, and after we were done perusing we were served a sample cup of their coffee - which again, by my estimation, was a bit over-roasted.

Now, the best cup of coffee I had in Guatemala was at Al Tueste, in Antigua. They got me, okay? The tourist, peering over google reviews for "the good stuff." It was like catnip: geisha beans, V60 brewing, fancy packaging. Al Tueste followed through, though, as they serve high end coffee in techniques of your choosing. I should note that I was surprised at how many shops in Guatemala were offering options of V60, Chemex, French Press, etc instead of just filter brewed or espresso.

But Al Tueste was special - they were actually offering to brew Sifón Japonés, or a Japanese Siphon brewer or ... you can just call it a Siphon. I'd seen it done by James Hoffman, but hadn't tried it. Essentially it's a vacuum pot brewing method where the water is boiled underneath, and then pressure pushes the water up through a tube and then is drawn down again through the ground coffee after you remove the heat source. You'll see - the barista was extremely kind and let me film.

I hope this was interesting! If you have questions about coffee or anything else Guatemala related (I now crave fried plantains daily) hit me up. At some point I'm going to try and recreate champurradas (a crispy, airy cookie served with coffee) and maybe I'll document that too. I'd also love any coffee travel recommendations you might have, just leave a comment below.

editing note: I trimmed out a section where I was being mean about some coffee I had. Cheers!