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REGIONAL

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SMALL PRODUCERS

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REGIONAL 〰️ SMALL PRODUCERS 〰️

Producer Small producers

Farm name Small farms of Qawale project

Region East Guatemala

Altitude 900 – 1 550 masl

Processing Washed

Species Arabica

Variety(ies) Caturra, Sarchimor, Catuai

Harvest November - February

QAWALE project

Created in 2006, The Qawale project has been built to assist and empower small and medium producers.

The project originated in Huehuetenango, and in 2019, it extended to New Oriente in the East region of Guatemala. on this side of the country, the coffees tend have less acidity and show chocolaty profiles with heavy bodies.

The project has been created by Vides58, a coffee structure in Huehuetenango with decades of experience in specialty coffee. They share knowledge with the producers and provide technical support on the field about practices and processing. Because the base of the program is built around the Rainforest Alliance certification, the activities are guided by the RFA model and focus on increasing native tree cover, and soil cover.

The producers of the project also receive social benefits and medical assistance. They also have access to recreational and cultural activities.

Most of the producers process their coffees themselves on their farms. This requires a rigorous follow-up of the processing techniques during the harvest in order to obtain an homogeneous quality. The producers all received Q-process trainings and have followed similar practices to develop this lot.

The producers are also learning how to develop new activities in their farms, how to diversify their production and how to take care of the natural resources, because these region of Guatemala is catalogued as a high risk of deforestation and high risk of get affected by climate change.

All of the coffee producers from Qawale have been verified as free risk zones.

THE PROCESS

  • All the coffees are processed on the several farms of the program.

  • After removing floaters and fermenting the coffee in water tanks, the coffee dries in parchment for 14 days.

Qawal is the contraction of quality and awal. Awal is a mayan word that means ‘to sow’.

CUP PROFILE

Aromas: chocolate, spices, hazelnut, brioche
Flavours: dark chocolate, powder cacao, well balanced, hazelnut, lemon.
Heavy body, round texture.

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