Ojo de Agua
Creamy and rich, with a full body. Cherry, hazelnut and milk chocolate.
This coffee was produced by producer William Morales at his farm Ojo de Agua (which is how water springs are colloquially known in rural Guatemala). Located at 1,650m above sea level, Ojo de Agua is nestled in the hills that surround the municipality and small town of Santa Ana Huista, in the state of Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
An architect by trade, Don William (as he is known around town) grows coffee with the help of his father and only son. His two-hectare farm is very productive, thanks to the region’s ideal conditions for coffee-growing. Due to the income his crop has generated over the years, William has been able to improve the property’s infrastructure, including the building of a small wet mill with raised drying beds.
Like most farmers in the region, William benefits from abundant freshwater, thanks to the local Rio Azul (Blue River) and its tributaries. All coffee at Ojo de Agua is grown under the shade of Chalum trees (a local variety of Inga) and Gravilea, though the amount of shade needs to be managed carefully every year due to Huehue’s humid, temperate climate.
Ojo de Agua is planted with the traditional Caturra variety, with hybrid Anacafe 14 introduced in more recent years. This lot is 100% Caturra. Don William farms with traditional techniques and organic practices, as is common in the region. Coffee pulp is recycled and dried to be used as fertiliser, and sedimentary tanks are employed to treat the water used during processing. All weeding is done manually, and few chemical pesticides or fertilisers are utilised—though fungicide is applied before flowering, to prevent roya outbreaks. The coffee is selectively hand-harvested, with most labour being provided by William and his family.
This exceptional lot was sourced with the help of export partner Eduardo Ambrocio and the team at Prisma Coffee Origins. Eduardo, who is also a Head Judge for Cup of Excellence, is one of the best cuppers we know — and through his work in Guatemala, we are connected to several quality-focused producers, who grow coffee at a small to medium scale. Head here to learn more about Eduardo’s work in Guatemala.
ABOUT EL SENDERO COOPERATIVE
Founded in 2018, the El Sendero Cooperative has a deep connection to Concepción Huista’s farming community. What began as a project with 33 founding members, now includes over 700 contributing farmers (400 of whom are coffee producers) who are led by managing director Pablo Gaspar, who is deeply passionate about ensuring local coffee growers receive fair and timely compensation for their crop. Before founding El Sendero, Pablo was a coffee producer himself. Life for the Gaspar family was challenging because Pablo would only receive partial payment for his crop on delivery (typically in March/April), and then in full several months down the track — sometimes as late as August. At the time, he had been volunteering as part of the management team for a coffee association that supported farmers in HueHue, that was founded using a grant from a local government program. Once those funds ran out, Pablo and a handful of his colleagues began discussing the option of starting their own co-operative, to ensure every farmer member received the financial support needed to establish a successful coffee farm. As Pablo told us on our most recent visit, “We figured, if banks can provide funds for average joes, why can’t we provide the same service to our own farmers?”
And so, Pablo set out to find farmers willing to invest enough capital to start the cooperative. He knew the minimum requirement was eighteen, and he initially had a hard time convincing more than fifteen of his colleagues to join. As the deadline for their application drew nearer, an influential member of the town decided to show her support for the initiative, turning the tide for Pablo and El Sendero. Once the co-op was officially up and running, more local farmers began to deposit their savings into the cooperative, earning them a better interest and strengthening El Sendero’s finances, which in turn benefited members who needed support. Today, the El Sendero’s finances are very healthy because of how quickly their contributor numbers have swelled. To join, farmers only have to pay a 250 Quetzal fee (around $50 AUD), which gets deposited into the cooperative’s general funds. Members then have access to the organisation’s financing, social programs, technical advice and support, and low-cost fertiliser and farming inputs.
When the co-op set up their coffee program in 2019, they lacked the resources and infrastructure to compete with the coyotes (or middlemen) that would roam the town’s streets offering farmers cash on the spot for their cherry. As Pablo explained, “We didn’t have offices or warehouses, so we rented a house in town and stored as much coffee as we could because we knew selling to coyotes was not good business for farmers.” As the co-op grew, they received a grant that helped them build facilities in 2022, where they established a warehouse, cupping lab and roastery. The warehouse includes a set of digital scales, which has furthered bolstered the trust members have on the co-op.
Besides providing its members with financial services and yearly training sessions on the best agricultural practices to follow, El Sendero roasts and distributes its members’ coffee locally. The co-op has also invested time and resources into creating a richer sense of community among its members by regularly organising farmers markets, soccer tournaments, and fairs. When we asked Pablo how El Sendero has found so much success in a seemingly short period of time, he proudly boasted, “because our town grows the best coffee in HueHue!”
By partnering with exporters like Prisma Coffee Origins, who in turn connects them to buyers like MCM, El Sendero has guaranteed its members with the financial stability the local coyotes never could. Pablo and Prisma’s founder Eduardo Ambrosio connected through a common acquaintance at Anacafe (Guatemala’s coffee institute) in early 2023, which led to a very fruitful meeting at El Sendero’s offices in Concepción Huista in March. Eduardo and brother Edwin, who oversees the company’s QA program, recognised the huge potential for quality in the lots they cupped, and were impressed by the traceability offered and the meticulous selection and quality control practices in place. El Sendero, which is Spanish for the path or trail, is an apt name for the cooperative, as their efforts and forward-thinking approach are leading the way to a brighter future for Concepción.
ABOUT HUEHUETENANGO
Huehuetenango (or HueHue as it is often called) is a stunning region located in the west of Guatemala near the border with Mexico. HueHue is known for being home to the Cuchumatanes mountain range, the highest non-volcanic mountain range in Central America, and for its vast ethnic diversity, which includes the Mam, Q’anjob’al, Chun and Jakalteko people. Before the Spanish invasion, the region was known as Xinabajul, which translates to “between ravines” in the local Mam language and is a reference to the numerous cliffs and steep hills found throughout the department. Pre-colonisation, the region’s largest city was Zaculeu (found in the outskirts of modern Huehue City), which translates to “white earth,” and whose ruins can still be visited today.
The department is vast, and includes a number of types of terrain that are suited to different forms of agriculture, depending on the elevation. Corn is the main staple of the lower regions, which transitions into coffee the further up one goes, with local pine farmed throughout the entire department. Huehue’s coffee-growing regions produce some of the most complex and celebrated lots in the country, and the region frequently appear in the top ten of the Cup of Excellence competition. This is in part due to the incredibly high elevations that coffee can grow (up to 2,000m above sea level), thanks to the dry, hot winds that blow into the mountains from Mexico’s Tehuantepec plain and protect the region from frost. These high elevations combined with a relatively predictable climate make for exceptional quality coffee. The highest elevations in Huehue, above 2,100m above sea level, are quite dry and rocky, so most farmers dedicate themselves to growing potatoes and herding sheep, goats and llamas.
HOW THIS COFFEE WAS PROCESSED
Don William has established a microbeneficio (small wet mill) with raised beds onsite, which allows him to process and dry his coffee onsite. As a member of the El Sendero Cooperative, William and his family also receive training sessions at the beginning of every harvest, to go over the best practices to follow during the picking and processing of his coffee – which are key in the production of exceptional coffee.
Harvest activities at Ojo de Agua began in February. Because most cherry was hand-picked by William and his relatives, a lot of care went into the selection of each bean, and multiple passes were required.
Every evening, freshly picked cherries were washed and depulped, and left to ferment overnight (or up to 12 hours). The following day, this wet parchment was washed again using fresh water from the nearby Río Azul, and laid to dry on Ojo de Agua’s raised beds. Drying until beans reached an adequate and stable moisture content took around a week, and was determined by weather conditions.
Once coffee was dry, it was picked up by the El Sendero Cooperative, where lots were stored at their warehouse and separated based on quality at their cupping lab. Once approved by Prisma’s team, farmers were paid within the week of their crop being sold, and parchment was milled and prepared for export near Guatemala City. Prisma are hoping to build their own dry mill in the coming years, as a way to minimise risk and give them more control of the quality of the coffees they export.
