San Jose Del Lago

Every coffee has a story. After all, coffee is a globally grown agricultural product. It is a real plant grown by real people that passes through many hands before we, as baristas, serve the final product, a delicious cup of coffee. 

This past March (2024), I (Levi) traveled to Guatemala to visit some of the farms we have been buying from for years. One farm in particular was new to me, San Jose Del Lago, located on the beautiful Lake Atitlan. Upon arrival, we trekked through the coffee farm to a mountainside deck overlooking the farm and the lake. We were shown the utmost hospitality as we were served course after course of local fare. Our host, Eduardo Cabrera, was most kind and generous. 

We headed from the mountainside to the small wet mill that Eduardo and his team operated. The amount of volume they were able to produce on such a small footprint was inspiring, as well as likened to how we run production at Post Coffee, in the small corner of our Chipman Cafe. At this point of the season, the harvest was mostly over, and only a handful of workers remained to make sure the farm was clean for the next harvest, however, this is where some fun and opportunity played in.

Eduardo produced washed coffees, that's how the operation worked. We asked if he would produce a small amount as a natural, and he responded, "Of course!" "I have Kenyan raised beds we can use and we'll pick all of the remaining cherries," he said. As long as we guaranteed we would pay for the processing, he was in, and so were we.

Fast forward 3 months to June '24. Of all the coffee Eduardo and his team picked and produced as a natural for us, it yielded approximately 350 pounds (2.5 bags) of green coffee. This coffee, experimental for him and us, bought and paid for before we even tried it, comprises our San Jose Del Lago, a smooth chocolatey coffee with apple acidity and sugarcane sweetness. When you work with real people, you can do really cool things, and that's one of the reasons we love this industry. Cheers.