POAQUIL | Guatemala | High-Impact
POAQUIL | Guatemala | High-Impact
Our longest high-impact relationship! This coffee comes from "Cooperativa La Asuncion", a women-led cooperative which we’ve been supporting since 2016.
Expect strong dark chocolate and cocoa notes and a balanced, full-bodied experience. This is our flagship, life-changing coffee that embodies the change we want to see in the world! An outstanding 88-pt coffee that gets better each year!
Process: Washed (and sun-dried on raised beds)
Varietal: Red & Yellow Bourbon
Region: Chimaltenango, Guatemala
Roast level: Full Medium (Full City Roast)
*** Farmers have always received 2.5-3X times the “market price” for this coffee - going well beyond Fair-Trade standards (i.e. about a ~0.1X premium). While it is one of the few coffees we carry that is not Organic certified, the Cooperative excels on their water conservation practices and has excellent biological pest controls, avoiding the use of expensive chemical pesticides (a win/win for the community, the environment, and their business). We look forward to continue to support them on a spirit of transparency and a shared commitment to real impact and relationships that go beyond ‘marketing-driven’ certifications.
GRIND GUIDE
Coarse | French Press, Cold Brew, Moka Pot (Percolator), Chemex (and any other slow-flowing Pour-Over methods)
Medium-fine | Drip (standard or programmable coffee makers), single-cup brewers (automatic or one-cup Pour-Over dripper), Aeropress.
We always recommend grinding your coffee fresh for the absolute best experience. Pre-grinding your coffee exposes more surface area to the air, which means faster aroma loss and faster de-gassing/staling. If you must buy ground, we highly recommend placing the whole bag (including packaging) inside an airtight container, and using/opening one bag at a time if possible.
WHY LOVE POAQUIL?
This is our most impactful coffee yet! We’ve been working with Cooperativa La Asuncion, in the small town of Poaquil, Chimaltenango, Guatemala since our very beginning. The Cooperative has grown from less than 10 to over 30 members, each of whom owns and works their own small plot of land. Thanks to our support, and their own efforts, in 2019 - for the first time after growing coffee as smallholders for over 50 years - came together as a CoOp and purchased equipment to process their own beans!
Poaquil is a very small town, predominantly of Mayan descent, and full of incredibly hard-working people! We have seen, and can't wait to continue to see the impact and transformation that our long-term relationship will bring to the town - receiving more money for their top-quality coffee means more resources to invest in better housing, better schools, better healthcare, and a better future for all children!
Recommendations
Extremely versatile and delicious in a variety of methods! It is our top choice for a single-origin Espresso and for Cold Brew!