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When you drink a cup of coffee, you are holding the end of a long journey. In Guatemala, this journey starts high in the mountains, and it passes through many hands before it reaches you.
Coffee grows on small trees in tropical highlands. In Guatemala, the best plantations are found between about 1,400 and 2,000 meters above sea level, in regions such as Antigua, Lake Atitlán, Acatenango, and Huehuetenango. The mountain air is cool, the volcanic soil is rich, and almost all of the coffee grown in the country is of the Arabica kind.
The harvest generally runs from December to March or April. The fruit, which is called a cherry, is hand-picked when it is ripe and has turned a deep red. Workers go through the trees several times, because the cherries on one tree do not all ripen on the same day.
After picking, the seeds, which are the coffee beans, must be separated from the fruit. The most common method in Guatemala is called the washed process, in which the fruit around the seeds is removed with water. The beans are then dried, usually in the sun, and they are sorted by size and quality.
At this point, the beans are still green, and they do not smell like coffee at all. They are packed into sacks and shipped to roasters around the world. During roasting, the beans are heated until they turn brown and develop the aromas that we recognize. Finally, they are ground and brewed.
So the next time you take a sip, think about how much time and work are in that cup. Who picked the cherries? Who dried the beans? And how many hands touched your coffee before yours?
