Guatemala - Familia Doando
cup profile.
orange | brown sugar | milk chocolate
Swiss Water Process here in Delta, BC is an industry leader in chemical free decaffeination that retains the coffee’s unique flavour profile. This decaf from Finca Sabanetas showcases the bright citrus acidity and brown sugar sweetness of southern Guatemala. We’re tasting notes of orange and pomelo balanced by brown sugar and milk chocolate.
about the producer.
The Doando family have been growing coffee at Finca Sabanetas for more than a century. Nestled in the mountain forests of the southern Santa Rosa region of Guatemala, the volcanic soils and high altitude provide perfect conditions for growing Arabica coffee. With similar terroir to the neighbouring Antigua region to the south the coffee grown here has balanced acidity and sweetness. Finca Sabanetas is now in the care of the founders’ great-grandchildren and this fourth generation of coffee producers is led by Marco Tulio Doando, who grew up around the farm’s coffee plants and the traditional practices of the family.
about the coffee.
Finca Sabanetas produces a mix of classic Arabica varieties like Bourbon and Caturra and rust resistant Catimor varieties that over time have become increasingly popular to reduce the impacts of coffee leaf rust. Catimor varieties are a family of Arabica Caturra and Robusta Timor hybrids produced through rigorous development programs to combat the leaf rust epidemic in the 1970s. Early iterations often lacked sweetness and so were not overly popular with specialty coffee producers and roasters. However over the past 50 years ongoing cross-breeding in coffee research centres and in the wild have begun to produce excellent quality from newer members of the Catimor family.
One such example is grown at Finca Sabanetas; Anacafe 14 is a natural cross that spontaneously occurred at a farm in Guatemala between a Catimor plant and Pacamara. This variety presents excellent cup quality and is one example of how these Catimor varieties have begun to reshape specialty coffee production in response to climate change and increased coffee leaf rust outbreaks.
Each day at Finca Sabanetas the ripest cherries are hand picked and sorted at the farm before being driven to the local wet mill in nearby Barbarena. Here the coffee is sorted again, pulped and fermented overnight to break down the mucilage. In the morning the coffee is thoroughly washed before the clean parchment is laid out to dry in the sun on patios.
