Guatemala Coffee Beans

Guatemala takes the number 10 spot on the list of the world's top coffee-producing countries. Compared to Brazil and Vietnam, the country produces much less.

This isn't surprising given how small Guatemala is compared to other countries (Brazil is 78 times larger). Yet, it is an incredibly popular country in the eyes of specialty coffee lovers, thanks to the typical Guatemalan coffee qualities. In this case, it's high-quality coffee over coffee in large quantities.

Most coffee drinkers will prefer a delicious cup of Guatemalan coffee over Robusta coffee from Vietnam if given the choice. It's no surprise: Coffees from this country are bold and complex, with various flavors. This is thanks to the ideal coffee-growing soil and because plants receive adequate rainfall all year round.

Typical Guatemalan coffee qualities include a sweet floral aroma, delicate fruity flavors, hints of dark chocolate, light winey notes, and a lighter acidity (usually a fruity acidity).

In this article, we'll dive into the history of Guatemalan coffee, its flavors, and aromas, which regions in Guatemala grow coffee, what bean varieties there are, and how to best roast and brew beans from this country.

Unlike in other countries, coffee didn't start as a beloved drink first. The history of Guatemalan coffee begins with coffee as an ornamental plant. In the mid-18th century, the pretty coffee plant was introduced by a Jesuit priest. 

As the story goes, the priest José Mathías De Rivera brought coffee seeds from the Caribbean island of Martinique to Antigua, which today produces some of the best coffees. He planted these seeds in the courtyard of the San Felipe de Jesús monastery.

Coffee slowly started spreading to other regions because it soon became clear that Guatemala had ideal coffee-growing soil. It wasn't until the 19th century, though, that coffee was taken more seriously, and coffee farmers became more prevalent. 

In 1832, the government realized the potential coffee could be for the country. Coffee production was incentivized with tax exemptions and money prizes. Back then, most coffee was still consumed within Guatemala itself.

The first official coffee exports only happened in 1850, though it’s likely that some Guatemalan coffee crossed the borders before that date.

From the middle of the 19th century onwards, coffee became important for Guatemala because its dye industry took a huge hit. This is because an 18-year-old English guy called William Henry Perkin accidentally invented artificial dye while experimenting with something different.

This meant: bye-bye dye, hello coffee profits.

By the early 20th century, the delicate fruity flavors of Guatemalan coffee had earned its place in the hearts of coffee lovers. The country won numerous awards for its coffee in the United States and Europe but still had a long way to go. 

By 1920, the US had become the largest Guatemalan coffee consumer. 

In 1928, President Lazaro Chacón’s government founded the Central Office for Coffee to create, manage, and oversee the country’s coffee policies. 

The time of Great Depression, followed by World War II, hurt coffee prices and the coffee industry overall. After 1945, coffee prices improved again, but in 1958, prices took another hit.

In 1960, the Guatemalan National Coffee Association (Anacafé) was founded. This was a big step forward for Guatemala's role in the international coffee market, as the association's goal is to improve the country's competitiveness on a local and international level.

After a few decades with a challenging coffee industry, 1990 was another important milestone for growing coffee in Guatemala. This was the year the brand Guatemalan Coffees was launched to ensure people knew the quality they were getting if they bought coffee from Guatemala.

In 2018, the Guatemalan government declared coffee production an intangible heritage of the country.

Guatemala grows different coffee varieties in some diverse coffee-growing regions. This means that not all of the most distinguished Guatemalan coffees taste the same. Coffee grown in one region can also taste different depending on the processing and roasting. 

However, the most distinguished Guatemalan coffees are generally known for their gentle acidity, full body, and complex flavor notes. Most Guatemalan coffees are strong with obvious sweetness.

While you will find many nutty and chocolatey coffees in Guatemala, most Guatemalan coffees are citrusy and fruity with some floral notes.

Theoretically, you can use any roast level for Guatemalan coffee and get a nice-tasting coffee. However, there are some things you need to consider before you roast coffee.

Of course, much depends on your personal preference.

The short of it: To fully appreciate the flavors of fine Guatemalan coffee beans, it's recommended to start with a light to medium roast. But let's take a closer look.

Further below, you'll see that Guatemalan coffees have diverse flavor profiles and characteristics based on where they were grown and which varieties were used.

98% of all Guatemalan coffee beans are wet processed, so there's no guesswork. Considering these different flavor profiles would be best when deciding on a roast level. 

 A light roast preserves the beans' original flavors and highlights the region's distinct characteristics. This is great to put a spotlight on beans with bright acidity, floral notes, and a delicate sweetness.

Coban coffees are a good candidate for light roasts.

A medium roast for Guatemalan coffee beans creates a well-balanced cup. You'll still get the origin flavors but also start to see the roasting process's influence. This is a great option if you want a hint of roasty notes with the bean's original flavor.

This is great for coffee beans with nutty and chocolatey notes, like coffee beans grown in Fraijanes.

Dark roasts can also be an option, but you'll lose much of the original flavor as a dark roast will bring out the beans' chocolatey and caramelized notes. This can drown out all other notes. They might still shine through, but only weakly.

A dark roast could be a good choice for coffee beans grown in Antigua, as these beans tend to be on the chocolatey side.

The coffee bean is grown in many different regions in Guatemala. There are around 125,000 Guatemalan coffee farmers in over 20 departments. Together, these farms cover 305,000 hectares.

The most influential coffee growers who grow the best Guatemalan coffee beans can be found in the seven main growing regions. Most of these are in Guatemala's coffee belt, an area with volcanic soil high in minerals.

Huehuetenango

Altitude:1,500 to 2,000 meters above sea level

Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Typica

Flavor Profile: Coffee beans grown in Huehuetenango generally have a bright acidity and fruity flavors with notes of citrus, cocoa, and nutty undertones. Many coffees from this region have a pleasant, wine-like quality and a sweet floral aroma.

Good to know: This is the most remote coffee-growing region in Guatemala and home to the highest-altitude coffee farms in the country. The lack of great infrastructure means that farmers have no choice but to use their own mills for processing coffee.

Fraijanes Plateau

Altitude: 1,300 to 1,800 meters above sea level

Varieties: Bourbon, Catuai, Caturra

Flavor Notes: High-quality coffee beans grown in Fraijanes tend to result in a balanced cup with a distinct acidity and lively aroma. There are usually notes of chocolate, caramel, and a mild fruitiness. 

Good to know: This region is home to Pacaya, one of Guatemala's most active volcanoes, which supplies coffee farms with a new layer of volcanic ash now and then. This is great for coffee plants because of the ash's mineral content. 

Antigua

Altitude: 1,500 to 1,800 meters above sea level

Varieties: Bourbon, Catuai, Typica

Flavor Profile: Antigua coffees produce a full-bodied coffee with rich chocolate flavors and distinct acidity. Some Antigua coffee also tastes of spice with a floral acidity. One thing most coffees from this coffee-growing region have in common is a pronounced sweetness and a lively aroma.

Good to know: Antigua is comparably cool with some frosty nights, so coffee plants are grown in dense shade to protect them. This is the region where the first coffee plants were grown in Guatemala.

Coban

Altitude: 1,300 to 1,700 meters above sea level

Varieties: Catuai, Caturra, Typica

Flavor Profile: Coban coffees often have a bright acidity with a well-balanced body. Flavors range from citrus to stone fruit. They can also have some floral acidity and honey undertones.

Good to know: This is one of the wettest coffee regions in Guatemala, and natural processing is basically impossible there. This means coffee beans are usually dried with the help of coffee drying machines to prevent spoilage.

Atitlan

Altitude: 1,500 to 1,800 meters above sea level

Varieties: Bourbon, Catuai, Caturra

Tasting Notes: Coffee grown in this coffee-growing region generally has a light acidity and a medium body. Atitlan coffee has hints of citrus, dark chocolate, and sometimes floral or herbal notes.

Good to know: Atitlan coffee grows on volcanic soil around the beautiful Lake Atitlán, which is actually a volcano crater. The great soil quality and helpful nutrients are some of the reasons why coffee grown in Atitlan is one of the best coffees in Guatemala.

New Oriente

Altitude: 1,300 to 1,700 meters above sea level

Varieties: Bourbon, Catuai, Caturra

Flavor Notes: Coffee grown in this coffee-growing region is great for people who like milder coffees with well-balanced acidity and flavors of chocolate, nuts, and some hints of fruitiness.

Good to know: New Oriente was one of Guatemala's poorest regions. Since coffee plantations started in the 1950s, the region's fortune has turned around, and today, New Oriente is a thriving region with a good outlook for the future.

Volcan San Marcos

Altitude: 1,300 to 1,600 meters above sea level

Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai

Flavor Profile: Volcan San Marcos coffees have a light fruity acidity and medium body. Flavors range from citrus and berry to bittersweet chocolate and nutty undertones. You will also detect delicate flowery notes in most of these coffees.

Good to know: This is one of Guatemala's warmest and wettest coffee-growing regions with great soil quality. This is why coffee plantations dry coffee beans in the sun for just a bit and finish the process in a so-called Guardiola, a coffee drying machine. There are just not enough dry days for a fully natural drying process.

Guatemalan Varietals

While the growing region plays a major role in what a coffee tastes like, the coffee bean used is also very important.  

Most Guatemalan coffees are arabica coffees. Only about 2% of all Guatemalan coffee plants grown on volcanic soil are robusta.

Pache, Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, and Typica are varietals grown in Guatemala for a long time. Recently, different types and hybrids like Geisha, Pacamara, Maragogype, and Maracaturra have been introduced, and it remains to be seen whether any of them turn into a long-term success story.

Let’s take a look at the most used coffee beans in Guatemala.

Bourbon

Bourbon coffee beans are grown in many countries because of their sweet and complex flavor profile with caramel, bittersweet chocolate, and fruity undertones. These beans are usually grown at high altitudes.

The name "Bourbon" has nothing to do with whiskey in this case, by the way! It is derived from the island of Bourbon (now Réunion), where the variety was first discovered.

Caturra

Caturra beans are a natural mutation of Bourbon. They are popular on farms with limited vertical space for cultivation because of their compact size. Caturra beans typically produce a cup of coffee with a balanced flavor profile and a light fruity acidity.

Catuai

Catuai is a coffee of Mundo Novo and Caturra beans. It was developed to combine the positive attributes of both its parent plants: a high yield and a resistance to bad weather. The beans turn into a smooth cup of coffee with a medium body and mild acidity.

Catimor 

The Catimor coffee cherry is a hybrid of Caturra and Timor. It was developed for improved disease resistance and a higher yield. Catimor beans have a mixed flavor profile, sometimes displaying earthy or woody notes. They are popular in areas that tend to suffer from coffee plant diseases.

Maragogype

Maragogype is a mutation of Typica coffee beans and is also called "Elephant Beans" because they're pretty big compared to other Guatemalan coffee beans. Beans from these coffee plants turn into a mild and balanced cup with low acidity. They have only been introduced to Guatemala recently but have already proved fairly popular.

While Guatemala has a distinct wet season, many regions in this country only differentiate between wet and wetter weather. While rain is great for coffee plants, it makes the natural process (or dry process) impractical. 

98% of all Guatemalan coffee is processed via the wet process.

The washing process involves removing the skin and pulp from the freshly harvested coffee cherry in a water bath. The process still leaves the sticky layer called mucilage around the bean.

The bean is then fermented for a few days. During fermentation, the bean soaks up the sugars from the mucilage. Once this is done, the beans are washed again to remove the remaining mucilage. 

All that's left now is to dry the beans. In Guatemala, this often happens in two stages: A few days of drying in the sun (if the weather allows it) is followed by time in a coffee drying machine. Once dry, the beans are hulled, sorted, packed, and shipped to their final destination.

You can find some regions in which the coffee cherry is honey-processed or naturally processed, but it is not very common because coffee cherries don't dry well in the Guatemalan climate.

Before we look at the best brewing methods for fine Guatemalan coffee, you should learn about "Café de Chorreador", which is a typical Central American coffee brewing method. You can try this typical Central American coffee brewing method at home. It's fairly similar to the pour-over method. 

A chorreador is a wooden stand with two platforms: one to put your cup on and one with a hole. A cloth filter is inserted into that hole. This filter is called "bolsita" (Spanish for "little bag"). You can think of it as a manual version of the automatic filter coffee machine.

The brewing process is simple: Add coffee grounds to the bolsita and then pour hot water over the grounds. The coffee drips into the container below the filter (usually a cup) and is ready to drink.

The pour-over method is the closest to this traditional method, but usually, paper filters are used instead of cloth filters. A simple way is to use a V60 or a similar tool. By continuously pouring hot water over coffee grounds in a filter, you draw out typical Guatemalan coffee qualities. 

A Guatemalan coffee is great as a cold brew. A cold brew is a good choice if you aren't a fan of coffee acidity and would rather not taste light winey notes. It highlights the cocoa and nutty notes. The cold brew process has the drawback of taking 12 to 24 hours. The coarsely ground coffee beans have to steep in cold water to extract the flavors from the beans. 

The French Press is a great brewing method to bring out a Guatemalan coffee's bold notes and sweetness. A French Press won't draw out the more delicate notes in a coffee, but a French Press works well if you prefer aromatic, bold coffees with a full body.

If you have an espresso machine at home, Guatemalan coffee works nicely as an espresso shot and is a great base for many hot beverages.

A drip coffee machine also works, but drip coffee is an automated process that gives you little control over things like pouring speed.