Guatemalan coffee from Hamacas Farm is a beautifully clean, sweet and delicately fruity coffee for everyday drinking.
The farm / washing station:
Hamacas is a coffee farm located in La Libertad, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, at an altitude of 2,000 meters above sea level and managed by the Vides Family. The Vides Family acquired this farm in 2017, continuing a legacy that began with Jorge Vides in 1958, who started producing coffee using Caturra, Bourbon, and Catuaí varieties. Today, the farm is operated by the third generation of the family. The family employs eight permanent workers and between 10 to 25 temporary workers per trimester. The farm covers 6 hectares, producing approximately 1,500 kilograms of green coffee per hectare. The main challenges in coffee production include climate change, fluctuating rainfall patterns, rising fertilizer costs, and a significant decrease in available labour. These challenges necessitate careful planning and execution to ensure successful production. Future investment plans include separating the productive matrix by coffee variety to increase yield while maintaining high quality. The farm is also focused on enhancing biodiversity by planting more trees to improve environmental efficiency. Social and environmental responsibility is a priority for Hamacas, with the farm supporting four community schools, providing scholarships for coffee specialization, and managing several tree-planting projects.
Hamacas produces approximately 12,000 kilograms of green coffee annually, with the harvest occurring between January and April. The coffee varieties grown include San Ramon and Caturra. Coffee cultivation is carefully managed, with the picking season varying according to altitude. Pest control is a year-round effort, and the farm follows the ANACAFE program for pruning, which runs from March to October. Fertilization is conducted from May to November, with three applications based on soil test results. The mix of fertilizers used is 60% chemical and 40% natural ingredients, with an average organic material content of 5%. Weed control is managed from March to November to facilitate other farming activities. New coffee plants are typically introduced between April and June, timed with the first rains of the season.
Hamacas does not produce any other crops. The impact of climate change, particularly in temperature and rainfall distribution, has led to the development of a flowering index that guides farm activities. Financially, the farm faces challenges due to rising production costs, labour shortages, and inflation. To remain competitive, the farm focuses on quality production in its middle and high-altitude areas while increasing productivity in lower-altitude areas using resistant coffee varieties.
Variety:
Bourbon is the most famous of the varieties from the Bourbon family. It is a tall variety characterised by its relatively low production, susceptibility to the most common diseases and excellent cup quality. French missionaries brought this variety from Yemen to the island of Bourbon (now Réunion) in the early 17th century, giving it its present name. Bourbon did not leave the island until the mid-19th century. From the mid-19th century, however, the variety spread to new parts of the world as missionaries sought to establish themselves in Africa and America. Around 1860, Bourbon was imported to Brazil, from where it quickly spread north to other parts of South and Central America, where it is still grown today. Here it has mixed with other related varieties imported from India and with Ethiopian native varieties. Today, there are many Bourbon-like varieties in East Africa, but none of them exactly resembles the Bourbon variety found in Latin America. In Latin America, it has now largely been replaced by varieties derived from it (notably Caturra, Catuai and Mundo Novo).
Caturra is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety. It was discovered on a plantation in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil sometime between 1915 and 1918. Caturra has a mutation in one gene that causes the plant to grow smaller (called dwarf/compact). After the discovery of Caturra, selection was carried out at the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) in Brazil from 1937. The breeders were interested in the small size of the variety, which allows the plants to be placed closer together, and in its closely spaced secondary branches, which allow more fruit to be produced in the same space. For decades it was one of the most economically important coffees in Central America, so much so that it was often used (and sometimes still is) as a ‘benchmark’ against which new varieties are tested. The only disadvantage of this variety is that it is susceptible to disease, especially coffee leaf rust. It is similar to Bourbon in sweetness, balanced and slightly citrusy.
Processing:
Coffee processing at Hamacas is methodical and quality-focused. The coffee is manually picked based on maturity and Brix levels. After a 24-hour pre-fermentation period in the picking bags, the coffee is weighed, sorted, de-pulped, and fermented for 15 to 24 hours, depending on the climate. The drying process lasts 15 to 18 days, with regular movement of the coffee to ensure even drying. Once processed, the coffee is stored in nylon bags at the farms warehouse. Samples are collected and tested in a quality lab before the coffee is moved to the dry mill approximately two weeks later, where it is meticulously tracked for traceability.
Our baristas notes:
The perfect morning coffee. In our version we are saying a balanced sweet filter coffee. On the body there is a pleasant sensation of thick sweetness of pears, apples and sugar cane. The flavour is gradually replaced by notes of steamed nuts and a subtle chocolate at the end . The coffee has medium to low malic acidity and medium sweetness. A little more of it tends to be a slightly longer extraction.
Recipe for V60:
95 °C water
300ml water
20g coffee
690 micron grind (23 clicks per comandante)
0:00 40ml water
0:35 100 ml water
1:20 80ml water
2:00 80 ml water
Total time just over 3 minutes.
