SANTA CRUZ BARILLAS guatemala (organic/fair trade)

This Fair Trade and Organic certified coffee comes from the Asociación Barillense de Agricultores (ASOBAGRI), a co-op founded in 1989 by 20 Mayan coffee and cardamom farmers, located in an isolated corner of Guatemala, Santa Cruz Barillas of the Huehuetenango region.

The spectacularly rugged terrain has served to preserve the indigenous heritage, distinct clothing, and dialects that can vary from one mountain ridge to the next. In this cultural oasis, ASOBAGRI has become an important bridge to the international coffee community. This cooperative is simply one of the most sophisticated and well organized in the world. With more than 1,400 members, spread across 80 communities, who cultivate and harvest their own coffee on small farms with their own micro-mills, ASOBAGRI has the enormous task of providing training and technical support that is appropriately tailored to the needs of the members.

Strategies like using coffee pulp to make organic fertilizers reduces the transportation costs associated with purchasing fertilizer from afar, and at the same time, creates an abundant source of organic plant nutrition that ensures better yields and quality. Drying practices are also exquisitely uniform among members who use mobile raised beds that can be stacked and covered at night to protect the coffee and then unstacked and spread out during the day to dry the coffee in the sun.