Premium Guatemalan FTO – 16 oz

This Premium hand picked, freshly roasted organic coffee cones from the highlands of Guatemala produce several of the world’s finest and most distinctive coffees. This roast features tones of dried fruit, plums, and blackberry with a round body. These coffee coops do amazing things when it comes to their coffee.

Background information:

Unless you are going to parachute
into Santa Cruz Barillas, you should plan for one of the longest coffee
treks of your life. While many are familiar with Huehuetenango and the
reputation of the coffee region, few have ventured to this isolated
corner of Guatemala. Royal has gone many times over the years and we are
proud to have been the first to import Fair Trade certified coffee from
Asociación Barillense de Agricultores (ASOBAGRI). 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. ASOBAGRI also has centralized warehouses to store
dried parchment and a cupping lab where producers get immediate
feedback.

Our Recommendation:

We prefer it medium but it stands up well to a darker roast as well. Give it a shot today.