Guatemalan Premium Huehue – Ponderosa Yellow Catuai Natural – AnaCafe Winning Lot

With our buddy Edwins help, we won two awesome lots from the “One Of A Kind” AnaCafe Auction. Top notch unique lots from stellar farms. Super highly rated cups with a unique spin.

Ponderosa is a different field (farm) within Zapote Y Anexos. Same area and farmer as the other winning lot.

Tasting Notes:
A very tasty award winning cup for natural processed fans and a good shot a the famed blueberry note (with a little luck). Clean as can be, light to medium roasts fit this cup best. Good body, medium to low acidity with a nice complex dark fruit tone accompanied with some tart acidity. Not an overly ferment cup, fruity but not wild stone fruit, very refined and clean fruit notes mixing with a complex and winey more traditional Guatemalan malty undertone. Sweet edged with wonderful aromatics.

Roasting Notes:
An easy cup to roast, medium chaff for a natural and even roasting. Does darken up quickly so make sure you see the expansion in size before cooling it out. Setup really helps bring out the complexities, so a little patience after roasting is a good thing.

Farm Bio:
In a little region named Agua Dulce, Cuilco, near Mexico’s border representing one of the most important coffee zones in Huehuetenango known as a Highland Huehue, is located El Zapote & Anexos (348 km from Guatemala City).

The coffee plantations are sown in an altitude that goes around 1,500 to 1,900 masl. The weather is between 18 to 22 Celsius degrees. Having around 1,500 to 2,000 mm of rainfall each year. Surrounded with mountainous terrain, and blessed with different microclimates that has allowed different coffee varieties growing in the perfect weather.

History:
Not so long ago, in the late 1950´s El Zapote & Anexos farm was acquired by the Pérez Family, the production of green coffee was around 20 qq (9,071 kg). At the beginning we only had Typica Coffee, in 1960 we started introducing new varieties like Red Bourbon and Red Caturra.

Through the year´s passed the coffee farm continue expanding and increasing the coffee production combining environmentally friendly farming practices and focusing on human collaboration benefiting people and communities, giving us the result of high quality coffee.

Now days are called El Zapote & Anexos, having 80 (ha) of territorial extension with coffee plantations sown, and distributed with our varieties: (40%) Red Catuaí, (25%) Red Caturra and the rest are Red Bourbon, Yellow Catuaí, Villa Sarchí, Geisha, Pacamara and Java.

Tradition:
These days El Zapote & Anexos farm is work by the fourth (Wilfrido Pérez) and fifth (Hernán Pérez) generation of the Pérez Family. We are a leader company in production and marketing of specialty coffee, dealing with big challenges like adapting diferent varieties to the soil and weather condition.

Our family tradition established a compromised of excellent strict quality controls starting with the seed to the cup. We have created our own production proceses and constanst innovation and constant reasearch to improve our production and quality cups, all of these with enviromentally friendly practicing farms and giving and improving the quality of our peolples lives.

Harvest Season:
The fair distribution of the rain throughout the year is excelent for the bean development. Our harvest season last 4 months starting in January and ending in April.

Sustainability:
Environmental: The sustainability has to be seen as an ethical behavior and fundamental factor to keep the quality and production of our coffee reducing the impact on the environment.

Social: We believe through a fair payment our collaborators we could increase the productivity, keep the quality and improve living conditions of the family’s Social environment. We are compromised to improve the life conditions of our collaborators.

Certifications:
Rainforest Alliance
C.A.F.E. Practices

Awards:
Cup of Excellence ®
7th. Place Cup of Excellence® Guatemala 2021
20th. Place Cup of Excellence® Guatemala 2020
16th. Place Cup of Excellence® Guatemala 2019
2nd. Place Cup of Excellence® (Presidential Mention) Guatemala 2018

One Of A Kind Guatemala ®
5th. Place One Of A Kind® Guatemala 2021 – These are the award winning beans!

Regional Competition Highland Huehue ®
Top 10 Highland Huehue 2021
Top 10 Highland Huehue 2020
2nd. Place Highland Huehue 2019
Top 10 Highland Huehue 2018
2nd. Place Highland Huehue 2017
Top 10 Highland Huehue 2016
3rd. Place Highland Huehue 2015
Top 10 Highland Huehue 2014

Regional Competition Highland Huehue ® Category: Processes
Top 10 Highland Huehue Category: Processes 2021
Top 10 Highland Huehue Category: Processes 2020
1st. Place Highland Huehue Category: Processes 2019
1st. Place Highland Huehue Category: Processes 2018

Regional Competition Highland Huehue ® Category: Other Specials

2nd. Place Highland Huehue Category: Other Specials 2021