Finca La Bolsa sits at 1800 m asl in the Huehuetenango region, in the Western highlands of Guatemala bordering Mexico, and was bought by Jorge Vides, a distinguished medical professional, in 1958.

Mr. Vides worked full-time as a doctor, visiting patients around the country and eventually becoming the Director of the National Hospital of Huehuetenango, which still bears his name. He later came to purchase the land now La Bolsa, then covered in forests.

He planted Caturra and Bourbon varieties of coffee and, in 1980, founded a school on the farm that still serves students today. In 2012, Association Coffee Care opened on the farm to provide daycare centers and vocational training to children 2-14 years old.

Coffee Care funded the construction of a school and nursery at the farm, with fully trained, full-time teachers. All the temporary and permanent staff have access to schooling for their children, and they are incentivized to leave their children at school or nursery through food donations. When a child attends school or nursery for 5 consecutive days, they receive a weekly supply of rice, beans, and corn. Before this food ration scheme, it was very difficult to get people to leave their children in the care of others, and schooling wasn’t necessarily valued as there is greater pressure on earning more money to feed the family. As a result, no children are working on the farm, and the school and nursery classes are full.

Today, María Elena’s son, Renardo Ovalle and the farm agronomist Mercedes, manage La Bolsa and now also take care of four neighboring properties to help the extended the family business. All the new plantings are established in mini terraces.

La Bolsa is RFA certified & follows C.A.F.E practices guidelines; it’s deeply committed to environmentally sustainable practices and actively prioritizes the conservation of ecosystems by protecting wildlife, efficient water use, and avoiding deforestation. Sections of the farm are reserved areas, to promote biodiversity, and reduce exposure to winds and soil erosion. Inga trees are used as shade trees, and to fix nitrogen in the soil, which is essential for plant and cherry growth. Renardo has an expansive composting operation to make use of waste products using redworms.

La Bolsa sits between two mountains, which provide a very stable, humid microclimate. This, combined with the limestone-rich soils, gives the coffee a unique profile, with a rich syrupy body and plenty of malic and citric acidity.

Process: Pre-Fermented Washed.

This particular lot comes from the El Cabro plot on the La Bolsa farm. It is Caturra & Catuai variety and was pre-fermented in bags, which gives a fruitier cup profile.

Coffee is fermented for between 18 and 24 hours and then cleaned of mucilage, graded in channels, soaked overnight and then sun-dried.

In the cup: Amarena cherry, pecan nuts, vanilla, milk chocolate.

Resting period: at least 10 days from roast date for espresso roast, at least 5 days for filter roast.