Guatemala – Todosantarita

Huehuetenango is a municipality in the western highlands of Guatemala, running up to the border with Mexico and encompassing a lot of microclimates across its hills and valleys. Members of the Todosantarita cooperative are based on the hills of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, the highest non-volcanic mountain range in Central America. Spanish is spoken here, but he dominant language is Mam, highlighting the Mayan ancestry of the area.

In 1986, 17 people created a group that was the precursor to Todosantarita and with the help and expertise of Fedecocagua, Todosantarita coop was formally set up 6 years later in 1992. We have been working with them for years, buying as part of a Huehuetenenango SHB, but as we kept noticing their profile standing out, we decided to showcase them as one of our regional selections to highlight the great work they are doing. The Cooperative now consists of 127 members.

After picking, coffee is wet processed and dried on the farm before being shipped in parchment to the Fedecocagua facility for grading and milling, ready for export. Pache, fairly common in Guatemala, is a dwarf mutation of Typica, meaning that it can be planted more densely and thus increase a farms yield.