Christmas Brews – Week #3
Available until Wednesday 24th December 

Ader is the third generation to manage his small family farm. After working in the US for many years, he returned home to Huehuetenango to take over operations on the farm. Ader is the first in his family to implement new practices in the field and in his processing, and is focusing on the specialty coffee market. He’s been working hard for many years and we feel very lucky to be his first direct buyer. Not only are he and his family farming old varieties at seriously high altitudes in one of the most famed coffee regions of the world, but he is young, working completely independently and very motivated to implement new processes. This is our 9th year buying from Ader and his family- we’ve been through a lot together, celebrating the birth of two of his children with him, and mourning losses together.

This year has been a challenging year for many coffee producers in Guatemala, especially in Huehuetenango, given its proximity to the Mexican border- many laborers including those who pick cherries on coffee farms are choosing to migrate to Mexico en route to the US in search of economic opportunity and increased safety. Fewer pickers has meant that labor costs have gone up, increasing the cost of coffee production and making coffee production less economically sustainable.

FARM MANAGEMENT
Ader’s farm is wedged on a mountain ridge that overlooks a valley very close to the border with southern Mexico (locals often use cheaper Mexican SIM cards since their phones pick up the Mexican phone towers’ signal!). Ader splits the farm into three sections based on altitude (and hence picking date) and processes everything separately. We purchased from his “low”, “house”, and “high” lots, all with intriguing differences in body and acidity. On the farm Ader has a waste-water filtration system that prevents contamination of water systems. There is a nice amount of shade trees and volcanic rock on these steep cliffs- and Ader is an especially judicious pruner of his shade trees, mostly chalúm.

PROCESSING
Cherries are selectively picked and depulped in the afternoon into a traditional concrete tank. The following morning the coffee is washed once and then left until the following morning for final washing. At such high altitude nights are freezing and coffee can take a long time to ferment fully (where all the pectins have been broken down by bacteria and mucilage is detached from the parchment). This method of washing at the half-way point removes the sugary mucilage that has detached from the cherries that ferment faster and allows full fermentation of those that take longer. The next morning the coffee is fully washed using channels that density sort the parchment (over and under-ripes float and are removed).

PRICING TRANSPARENCY
We purchase parchment coffee from Ader, transferring money directly to his bank account. We paid 2,075 Quetzales per quintal (100 pounds of parchment) for his lots. We then pay for transport to our chosen mill.