In January 2015, Les and Jamie Stoneham revisited the wonderful farmers of our La Armonia Hermosa coffee. We have fallen in love with this coffee and the hard-working hands that pick and produce it. Read below to find out a little more about their trip and check out the facebook photo album to see more photos from this trip.
With each year, it's great seeing the progress Julio Cuy Castellanos, his family and friends are making on the beneficio (the wet mill). With the profits from last year's coffee harvest, they built about 20 hoop houses to raise tomatoes and peppers on the land where the beneficio is situated.
The farmers have officially become a registered association with about 30 farmer members and a leadership board.
Edgar and Vicente work together using the now motor-powered depulper which takes off the outer cherry of the coffee from the bean.
They now have a larger area for drying the coffee once it has been depulped, fermented, and washed.
Les is working with the farmers on an experimental cold fermentation process in some of the wash tanks at the beneficio. We are excited to see how this experiment goes.
With each trip we always learn more about the coffee process and develop stronger relationships with the hopes to build a stronger community around directly and fairly traded coffee which mutually benefits both the farmers and the consumers. Join us in sharing in this community by trying our February Featured Coffee - La Armonia Hermosa.
Check back soon as we update our blog on the other farms we visited while in Guatemala.