Guatemala Blue Ayarza Washed
About This Coffee
The Region
The region of Ayarza is a special one, landmarked by the drastic landscape and cold blue water from the Laguna de Ayarza and Laguna Azul. The lake was formed by two massive volcanos that collapsed and formed a large crater.
The legends surrounding this lake are numerous and the bottom has never been found. There is a large white rock of a petrified woman who didn’t follow the orders of Jesus. In short, there are simply too many good stories about Ayarza to do it justice!
Olam Guatemala always knew the region had massive potential to produce specialty coffee, but the cups that we found were usually solid but unsurprising. Two years ago we rented a wet mill at 1,500 meters on a RFA certified farm. The quality coming from our washed coffee was much better than we expected. Next we tried some naturals by buying cherry in Ayarza and transporting it to a region that had plenty of patios and good wind for drying. This has now been extended to include honey process alongside experimental lots.
The Process
The Ayarza washed process is a hybrid of traditional washed processing with mechanical demucilage processing. After years of refinement, we have found this to offer a 'best of both worlds' scenario, here's why:
Mechanical demucilagers use a fraction of the water of traditional washed processing. This has a number of benefits, not least a significant reduction in environmental footprint from water usage and the production of waste water. Waste water from washed coffee processing is a challenging byproduct of any facility producing washed coffee, anywhere in the world. Waste water is contaminated with organic pollutants which can wreak havoc on ecosystems if released into local rivers, so the water is either treated to remove these pollutants (a costly process), or it is pooled into seepage pits which, while preferable to polluting local rivers, is not a scalable long term solution to the problem.
A potential downside of the demucilage process is that it skips fermentation altogether. Without a need to ferment coffee to break down its sugary mucilage for washing, a functional approach would consider fermentation redundant. But fermentation in washed processing does more than allow for the enzymatic breakdown of mucilage, it also adds flavour and character to the final cup.
So, after numerous tests and tweaks, we include a 4-6 hour fermentation followed by mechanical demucilaging. This allows for a welcome extra hint of fruit in the cup profile, whilst retaining the eco-benefits of mechanical washing.
- Subregion Lake Ayarza, Santa Rosa
- Producer Type Small Holder Farmers
- Processing Washed
- Bag Types Grain Pro / Ecotact
- Plant Species Arabica
- Variety Anacafe 14, Bourbon, Catuai, Pache, San Ramon
- Min Growing Altitude 1400m
- Max Growing Altitude 2000m
- Screen Size 15 Up
- On Sale No
- Top Lot No
- Price Per Kg €10.15
- Status Spot
- Coffee Grade GTM CA WA SHB FANCY
- CTRM Contract Number P8002881-2
- Origin Guatemala
- Warehouse Vollers Hamburg