Profile: Guatemalan Santa Felisa Estate

Anna Kerwick @ 2019-08-26 16:09:29 +1000

origin: Guatemala
region: Acatenango Valley
altitude: 1,520-1,900m
process: Washed

October 2015 sees a Bean of the Month from the Acatenango Valley, Guatemala, which is consistently full bodied and renders a pleasant sweet aroma, establishing its unique profile.

Founded in 1902, the Santa Felisa Estate is one of the most esteemed farms in the world. Owned by the Meneses family for four generations and currently managed by siblings, Antonio and Anabella, the Santa Felisa Estate has grown to epitomise the culture of micro-lots production and the culture of coffee artisanship.

Located in the Acatenango Valley, at an altitude of 1,520-1,900m, Santa Felisa Estate coffees have an incredibly unique profile characterised by the Acatenango Valley’s micro climate that creates ideal coffee growing conditions. This warm high-altitude weather allows the beans to ripen very slowly, perfectly capturing the nutrients of the volcanic soil.

Continuously experimenting with new processing methods, the fully washed lot from Santa Felisa Estate offers an exceptionally clean profile with amazing clarity, vibrancy and balance. Fully ripe cherries are picked, sorted and sent for drying. The cherries are then sun-dried or placed on raised beds to allow greater airflow during the drying process to prevent over-fermentation.

Guatemalan coffee is revered as one of the most flavourful and nuanced cups in the world. It is so unique due to its high altitudes, diverse microclimates, consistent rainfall patterns, and excellent cultivation and processing, producing a variety of distinctive types of Guatemalan Arabica coffees.

The Guatemalan Santa Felisa Estate coffee is distinctively full-bodied, with notes of toffee and milk chocolate, and a smooth, velvety vanilla finish, giving it a harmonising profile.