Huista

Sebastiana Gaspar

Sebastiana Gaspar grows coffee not far from the village of Concepción Huista. Many of our recent Guatemalan releases have come from the Huista micro-region, due in part to the excellent quality, and to our partners from Primavera’s focus here, with a warehouse and lab located in San Antonio Huista to better support the producers of the region. 30 years ago, Sebastiana and her family grew basic grains such as corn and beans on their 1.3 hectare farm, but have since invested in quality coffee, and become members of a local female producer cooperative, El Sendero. The cooperative helps producers to get their highest quality coffees to market, and it was through them that Sebastiana met Primavera.

Huehuetenango

Sierra de los Cuchumatanes

Huehuetenango is located in the north-western highlands of Guatemala, and borders with Mexico. It is home to the highest altitudes in all of Central America, due to the presence of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes mountain range, which peaks at 3837 masl. This creates lots of high altitude land to grow high-quality coffee, an important crop in an area where agriculture is the largest industry. A dry hot wind also blows in from the Tehuantepec plain in Mexico to the north, which protects crops from frost, allowing coffee to grow even higher up the slopes, often above 2000 masl.

These high altitudes also lead to very beautiful scenery, something the area is known for, but also to a remoteness not found elsewhere in Guatemala. 9 different ancient Mayan dialects are still spoken here, and the region is home to some of the best preserved examples of Mayan architecture.