Guatemala El Injerto
Posted: 6/01/2010 2:57:44 p.m.
After a couple of months sourcing and cupping new coffees, we have come across some brilliant single origins and one of the most exceptional is the Guatemala El Injerto. This farm specialises in growing top quality arabica coffee and has diversified to produce other agricultural products such as apples, macadamia nuts and trout! El Injerto produces several varities of premium beans, all very good quality but some that are truely exceptional. Unfortunately it is very difficult to secure the lots which rank highly in the Cup of Excellence (ranked number one for the the Guatemalan program in 2006, 2007 & 2009). However this farm has incredibly high standards and the coffee which we have obtained from El Injerto has displayed the charateristics which mark their product as one of the most alluring coffees you will come across.
Our El Injerto has a good juicy flavour, a clean but complex cup with balanced acidity, delicate sweetness and a full body. Flavours we scribed from our taste notes included vanilla, caramel, and cane sugar sweetness, green apple, lemon and lime notes and underlined by soft cocoa and spice tones.
Below is an excerpt from the farms own website,
http://fincaelinjerto.com/.
The first owner of this farm was Mr. Jesus Aguirre Panama, who acquired it in 1874. He began cultivating sugar cane to produce crystallized sugar locally known as "panela", corn, beans, and tobacco. During 1900 he started planting coffee, and called this section EL INJERTO (The Grafting), since this was what started the agricultural development in the area.
The current owner is Arturo Aguirre Escobar, representing the third generation of his family. He has worked the farm since 1956, when the production was approximately three hundred (300) bags 100 pounds.
EL INJERTO has a total of seven hundred and fifty (750) hectares, four hundred (400) of them are between 1,500 and 2,000 meters (4,921.26 - 6,561.82 feet) above sea level, all planted with coffee, fruit orchards, basic grains and ornamental plants. The remaining three hundred and fifty (350) hectares have been preserved as a thousand-year-old virgin forest, which gives the farm its special climate and adequate conditions to have clean water that springs directly from the mountains. In addition, it constitutes the perfect habitat for flora and fauna; and especially allows the production of coffee in an eco-system preserving our natural environment. The forest area surrounds the coffee plantations. The farm has an annual rainfall of 1800-200 mm per year a relative humidity of 70% and an average temperature of 73°C (23°C). The soils are volcanic, profound, well drained, and with high contents of organic matter.