Guate travels: Pictures

Interested in what we have been doing while in Guatemala? Here is a brief picture summary of what we've been up to...

The first picture is outside of John's window the first two nights he was in Antigua.

We then went to Dometrio's land. We are taking a little break eating Jocotes. One of Dometrio's shade crops over his coffee trees.

These are the "chicken" buses that take people to and from the different villages and cities in Guatemala.

John, Les, and Jamie took a nice relaxing lunch at Epicure. It had a beautiful plaza in the middle of it, and the food was spectacular! We even received complimentary chocolate/ginger truffles.... yumm.

Then the day before John left for his "origin" tour with the Roaster's Guild, we all went to a great vineyard in Santa Maria which is supposedly the only winery in Central America. It is new, but has tasty wine and is in a BEAUTIFUL location!

The last photos is of the casa where we were able to taste the wine, and there's a little restaurant inside too. Also, Les was able to talk with the owner of the vineyard (Château Defay), and they might be willing to sell La Armoñia Hermosa coffee by the bag and by the cup at the winery.

John in Guatemala

John made his way from Atlanta to Guatemala city this past week in preparation to take an "origin" tour of different beneficios (coffee mills) and fincas around Guatemala with the Roaster's Guild.

Before his official tour John spent the weekend with Les, Jamie and the farmers of Santa Maria de Jesus. These are pictures of John depulping 250 pounds of coffee! Now that's a lot of coffee!

In the first picture Julio, Les and John are picking out the green (unripe) cherries before they go through the depulper. These exact beans were picked by some new farmers who have decided to join the co-op. We are excited to have them because they had some of the best picked coffee we've seen. "Solo rojo."

The second picture is of John actually cranking the depulper. The cherries go from the top and get squished along the copper grate which pushes the beans out of the cherry pulp. This is some tiring work. The stuff coming out at the bottom of the depulper is only the pulp that is later composted back into the soil.

The third picture is the beans coming out of the depulper. There are a few of the cherries left with the beans, but those will be sorted out in the washing process.

More updates from the field coming soon...

Announcing FlourPower

We would like to announce our newest Vendor of our coffee...

Please welcome FlourPower to our great list of vendors. Located behind Purple Dog Art Boutique in Abbeville, AL, this quaint boutique and bakery opened its doors at the end of November last year. Owners, Sarah Williams and Paulette Riley enjoyed a great Grand Opening with drinks, food, and entertainment from Clark Williams and Yuri Hoshino. Here's some pictures from that event. Thanks FlourPower for choosing Vienna Coffee.

Beneficio in Santa Maria

Les had a great meeting with the farmers this week. They have created a contract for the land that the beneficio (wet mill) will be constructed on. Because of the demand during picking season, construction will not start this season. Things move quite slow here in Guatemala, but it looks like construction might start in April! This is great news!

Just yesterday Julio and his nephew received and processed more than 18 Quintales of coffee cherries from various farmers within the coop. That's a lot of coffee cherries to process on his small depulpper. Therefore the idea of having a beneficio with a larger depulper and drying patio is a great idea for efficiency, and it will allow for more of the farmers to get more involved in the processing of their own coffee.

This is a video of the land that will have the beneficio on it...