Cold weather made its mark on the coffee harvest in Huehuetenango, as well as the green coffee seeds.
The 2023/24 harvest saw colder than average weather in Huehuetenango, and even brought frost and hail to some areas. Some of the coldest temperatures were reported in La Libertad and El Paraíso regions, where quite a few farmers who are part of our Proyecto Xinabajul reside.
This cold snap was hard on farmers because it meant a diminished crop, as well as lower yields of Specialty grade coffee that we buy. The latter was particularly affected by frostbitten beans that present as black marks on the seeds. Color sortingSorting coffee by removing beans that have a color that indicates a defect. Color coffee sorting is often done by an optical sorting machine, which has a high... machinery removes the worst of it at the dry millA facility that accepts dried coffee cherry and mechanically separates the coffee bean from the dried fruit and parchment layer. The facility can be highly mechanized, as in..., which may be good for the final top grade, but bad for the farmer since they won’t produce as much of it.
This does not mean we bought less coffee. On the contrary, we’ve actually worked to maintain our volumes, and paid a slightly higher margin to help mitigate some of the losses at the mill. The good news is, this year’s coffees cup incredibly well, and any small instance of frost-bitten coffee does not make it through to the cup. If you see a few, you can free to pick them out, or not! We don’t cull our green when cup testing and writing reviews.
Learn more about our Proyecto Xinabajul coffee project in Huehuetenango
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