Flor del Café Jalapa, Guatemala, Washed

Coffee is believed to have been introduced to Guatemala by Jesuit missionaries, with accounts of it growing in the country by the mid 18th century, but it only became a serious export crop from the 1850s onward, when demand for the natural cochineal dye that had dominated the economy collapsed. The shift was rapid: coffee rose from around 1% of Guatemala's export value in 1860 to 92% by 1880, accelerated by the 1871 Liberal Revolution under Justo Rufino Barrios, whose government built infrastructure and passed land and labour laws that favoured coffee estates. Today the national coffee association, Anacafé (founded in 1960), recognises eight distinct growing regions. Jalapa, a department created in 1873, falls within New Oriente (Nuevo Oriente), the region that spans parts of Jalapa, Jutiapa, Chiquimula and Zacapa in the east of the country. Unlike Guatemala's volcanic regions, New Oriente's coffee grows on metamorphic, clay-rich soils, typically at 1,300-1,700 m, in a warmer and drier climate with less rainfall, ranging from the cool highlands around Mataquescuintla to warmer valleys near Monjas. The region's coffees are known for full body, chocolate and cocoa notes, caramel and nutty sweetness, and balanced, rounded acidity.

Flor del Café shines a light on Jalapa, an understated coffee region in Guatemala's south-east. Coffee here is grown mostly on family farms smaller than five hectares, often under shade and alongside maize and beans. For many households, it remains both the main cash crop and part of a broader way of life on the land.

Because each harvest is small, families may process cherry at home using simple equipment or deliver it to a nearby wet mill. The washed parchment is then carefully sorted and combined into a traceable regional lot, allowing smaller producers to reach specialty buyers together. Jalapa's warmer, drier conditions and clay-rich soils create a profile distinct from Guatemala's better-known volcanic regions, favouring chocolate, caramel, gentle nuttiness and rounded acidity. Flor del Café captures that quiet strength: a balanced, comforting coffee built from the work of many small farms.